I thought and thought about how to do the face. I finally settled on a needlepoint approach with two skin tones, pink for the lips, and brown for the other features. I worked it with only one strand of floss. I think it came out very well! The texture is different than the arms and legs but it still works together.
Almost done now! All that’s left is a few details on the crown, the pink flower in her hair, and some grass to stand on.
Look, she’s got legs! You can’t dance without legs. Also, I am going to leave the stem stitch ridges in the skirt as they are now rather than filling it in entirely. The pink ribbon at the right came with the kit. It’s for the flower in her hair.
From the back:
This is the woodblock “8pm” by Kunichika, created in Japan in about 1890, and it is an accurate picture of my life at the moment.
Hello everybody! So, I do not quite have a PhD yet, but I worked some embroidery over Christmas break regardless. Therefore, I will be posting again! Hurray! I am working on one for tomorrow, plus a few more. I missed y’all!
Anyway, when I have time to work on my own designs I want to look to the ukiyo-e (floating world) woodblock prints for inspiration. They are really wonderful – so complex and colorful but stylized so they don’t rely on detailed shading. I know you can do amazing shading effects with long-and-short stitch, but it does take a while. And all the faces are so expressive yet use only a few lines. I love it!
Hey y’all,
Just wanted to let everyone know that I will definitely be back in a couple of months. My PhD dissertation is due in November, so I have absolutely no time to write anything else (or do embroidery) at the moment. I will be back posting in December! I miss y’all!
I have started on the arms in split stitch. I am thinking about how to work her face. I have never worked a face before, and I want to keep the expression.
I thought I’d show you the back today, in case you are curious.
Anyway, posting is light because my dissertation writeup is due in less than two months. So I am writing a lot, but not for y’all! Am looking forward to getting back to embroidery 🙂 Soon!
Well, I did a few more french knots after all – see the edge of the green at the top of the skirt? I decided to work most of the skirt in Romanian couching. It’s directional, so you can give the fabric a sense of movement, and it fills space well. Here is a closer picture – take a look at how different the textures can be. The wings and the skirt are both silk, just different kinds!
I love the texture for her body, but I am sick of french knots now! The dark blue and green french knots are Corticelli twisted silk – a present from the wonderful Monique. Thanks SO MUCH Monique! It’s really making this project look good. I will be using it on her skirt too, though I think I’m done with french knots for this project.
The wings, hair, and the red sections are Kreinik silk mori. Her hair is worked in double running stitch. You can see the crown starting to come together. The gold accents really stand out!
Y’all, I am officially defending my dissertation in November! HURRAY! Now that I’m not sick, I am making quick progress. In celebration, I am working this little bitty Thai dancer. It’s an embroidery kit from Pinn Stitch (they mostly have cross-stitch, but they both this kit and a second dancer). It comes with a frame (one of those rubber fake wood ones), gold thread, beads, and pink ribbon for embellishing the preprinted design, but I have decided to add more thread and embroider the whole thing. I have already started, and am having tons of fun.
The Manohra Thai dance (which is what this dancer is performing) is about a half-bird woman (see the wings!), her father-in-law the king, and some unscrupulous court advisors who are conspiring to convince the king to murder her. I found a video of some of it if you want to see the real thing:
Today I have a special treat, courtesy of a friend of mine! He bought what he thought was a painting, but when it arrived it was an embroidery. It’s about four feet long and is silk. He sent me some photos but you know, silk behind glass is tricky to photograph. You can see the shimmer in the next photo.
I asked my Dad to do some research, and he reports that this is a traditional illustration of the Five Relationships of humanity. The characters 五伦图 mean “Five Ethics Graph,” and you can find more examples of this type of art here (using Google Image Search). The ancient tradition is that there are five major relationships, and these are often symbolically represented by bird pairs.
Orioles stand for friendship.
The largest pair involves the phoenix, and represent the relationship between ruler and subject. I think that’s a pair of mandarin ducks at their feet, which are famous for mating for life and therefore represent love.
Cranes represent father and son and wagtail pigeons are elder and younger brother.
Here is another photo with details of the stitching in the flowers. Keep in mind, the whole thing is about four feet long. So much work!
I have been working on my Chinese silk embroidery kit (not really worked in Chinese style). I added a lot of leaves, and started work on the flower. The flower has bold shading instead of gently changing shades, which is turning out even better than I thought it would. I am looking forward to attempting the birds.
embroidery for ducks 