I started work on the first bluebird for the Bluebird Floral project. I’ve been referring to Trish Burr’s new book, Colour Confidence in Embroidery, to improve the feather/stitch directions. It’s helping a lot!
Here are photos of my progress through stitching the bird:
All that’s left are the feet and the branch the bird is on. I’m so glad I picked out some new threads – they make the bird so bright and alive.
Y’all, Méri sent me a wonderful little sample of Castelo Branco embroidery, from the gift shop of Francisco Tavares de Proença Júnior Museum in Castelo Branco, Portugal. Isn’t it beautiful?
Imagine an entire bedspread worked like this! Did you know that it’s actually the London V&A Museum that has the largest collection of Castelo Branco bedspreads? They aren’t on permanent display though.
Below you can see real Castelo Branco stitching! Here I have a close up of the flower. It’s in silk, and is very glossy.
Méri wrote a series of posts about her experiences at the museum and other Castelo Branco embroidery centers. You should check them out! I found them very interesting (she writes in both Portuguese and English, so you don’t even need to translate them).
Finally, I thought you’d also like a good look at the stems.
I finished all the stems. You can see the petals and leaves I’ve been adding below.
I added two more berries – I left them until the end, because I didn’t want them to get crushed in the frame while I was working on other areas of the bellpull. I’m close enough to finished that I can easily work around that now. I love the three dimensional effect.
I have something really special to show you! I want to introduce you to an incredible artist, Marta Brysha, from the highlands of Tasmania. She just launched a brand new website to display her work. Her gorgeous embroideries in hand-dyed silk dupioni and hand-dyed silk thread are inspired by scientific topics. For example, her work In Flight shows streamlines around a bird in flight:
More detailed photos are on her website. Evolution I (below) illustrates a fluid droplet.
Each drop is worked with layers and layers of hand-dyed silk.
Folks, this is a tiny, tiny sample of what you can find at Marta’s website. Do you know how hard it was to pick just a few to show you? Pure torture! There are dozens more!!!! I didn’t even show you all the close up photos where you can see the stitching! In fact, there’s an entire series of artworks which are not represented by any photos in this post. But that’s not all! Her blog, Silk and Colour, shows work in progress, photos of more works that haven’t been added to the website yet (like the nebula below!)
Come and Meet Me in the Middle of the Air
and experimental works that may lead to a new series:
Diatom (type of phytoplankton). Silk on acrylics and paper
You can also find posts about how she does it, like this post on how she dyes her silks. So be sure to check the blog out too!!!
Guest post from my mom, Laura!
The Big Green is a finished, finito, complete, Done Deal! Final dimensions: 5 ft. x 3 ft (1.52 m x 0.91 m).
Let me tell you, this has been quite a project. The prototype doily was 31 in x 17 in (79cm x 43cm). There were some changes along the way. (Click on the photo if you want to blow it up larger)
This last session was primarily fine tuning so to speak. Ferny leaf shapes finish the right side now as well as the left. I added more colors to the seed stitching of the background and extended it.
This dark green plant has a dark blue and purple flower that blended altogether too well into the background. It succeeded in being inconspicuous. This unacceptable behavior I foiled with a golden stem stitch outline around the entire plant and flower.
Finally, many flowers received a sparkle for their center with inexpensive pierced earrings. This technique would not work on a quilt (Ouch!) but this Big Green garden is destined for life as a curtain so pointy metal spikes are not an issue.
Then at the last, at the very end of things I tried to convince myself that machine stitching the edges (zip and done in 10 minutes max) would not show too much. My artistic sense won out over my lazy streak so I was doomed to hem miles of green. Ghastly, boring, excruciating – It seemed like forever to finish. However, now the Big Green is really truly Finished, Done and even Complete. I DONE DID IT! Celebrate!
There was a thread sale at my local needlework shop, so I went looking for something extra nice to work my bluebirds with!
The larger skeins are Caron Impressions (50% silk, 50% wool), and have a really lovely sheen while still fuzzier than floss. The small brown ones are Bella Lusso merino wool, which are lovely and so very soft. I think the colors and textures will make the birds spectacularly vibrant, even while surrounded by all those beautiful flowers and leaves. There’s more than enough for two little bluebirds, so I’ll be having fun with these for a while.
I was also extremely tempted by the absolutely gorgeous variegated wools, silks, and wool/silk blends from Gumnut Yarns. Those are beyond amazing. Unfortunately, since they’re imported all the way from Australia, the prices are also amazing. So they will have to wait until my salary goes up. Dear Australian readers, I am so very jealous of y’all.
I posted about Iranian pateh embroidery twice before (Cypress tree in Iranian embroidery, Iranian pateh embroidery), but there is one more example in Dr. Shirazi’s collection. It’s a great example of a simple overall design that looks very intricate because of the way the individual elements are worked.
Here it is from the back.
This embroidery has a large circular central motif with a star.
I haven’t really seen this style of stitching much in other embroidery traditions. Here is a closeup to guide you if you are interested in trying something similar.
If it helps, here is the back of the central motif, too.
Finally, take a look at the border, from the front and the back.
This is one of a special series of posts based on the embroidery collection of Dr. Faegheh Shirazi, from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is on “textiles, dress, gender identity discourse, and material culture in the Middle East; the meanings of veiling; rituals and rites of passage as they relate to material culture.” Over the years she has collected a number of examples of embroidery from around the world, and has very kindly allowed me to photograph them for my blog.
Guest post from my mother, Laura!
A while ago my daughter Hannah discovered PinTangle – Sharon B’s fantastic website for embroidery and crazy quilting. She shared it with me and in the course of clicking through all the links I found Sumptuous Surfaces. SS is her course on embroidery design and embellishing. We both signed up. During the course students chose a theme, planned two embroidery projects and carried them through to completion. I chose a beach theme with a hand holding a shell. I then spent several days and many pieces of paper drawing the hand, over and over and over. Trying this, then that, then the other. Eventually, I had a design and I was stitching away. This is the first hand I designed and stitched.
The zig zag straight stitches of the snail’s body are finished off with French knots for his eyes. His shell is made of stem stitch and satin stitch.
The hand is outlined in a variety of line stitches. The textured background defines the hand shape, the inside of the hand is left free of stitching. The fingernails are done in satin stitch.
The beach surrounding the hand is made of all kinds of textured stitches. There are French knots, seed stitches, bouillons, and buttonhole wheels, as well as lines of back stitch and satin stitch. There are even a few beads for extra pretty.
I tried out just about every line stitch I could on the hand outline. Recognizable stitches include button hole, whipped straight stitch, stem stitch, chain stitch and back stitch. That white line at the bottom is something of a mystery – poorly executed herringbone over something else maybe? Oh well, it was the first time I had done embroidery in a very, very long time. Everything considered, such as this is the first embroidery I had done in at least ten years or so, I am pretty happy with the results. I certainly had fun.
I worked a little more of the Plas Teg Bellpull.
In this first photo I added three leaves in fly stitch, and outlined two petals in preparation for long-and-short stitch filling.
In the second photo, I finished the vine tendril and added some leaves.
All little things, but it is progress. Onwards! I am getting close to done with this project!
I felt like trying something new, so here’s the start of my Hardanger sampler! I picked stitches that looked pretty in the instructions and tried them out. Turned out great! It’s not hard, actually, though it looks really fancy.
Traditionally, I think you have two sizes of thread, so you can do the lacy parts in the thinner one, but I just used one size in this sampler.
So, how does hardanger work? I left some unfinished blocks so I could explain.
See the satin stitch border in the first photo above? Those are to keep the rest of the linen in place after cutting holes in it. Traditionally, the satin stitching is divided into blocks of 5 stitches over 4 threads (called kloster blocks) on 22 count fabric. It still works if you don’t follow directions, just as long as the satin stitching is facing the right direction to keep everything in place. The middle photo is right after you cut the threads in the interior of the square, leaving a few so you can weave in bars. The last photo is 3/4 done: the bars are complete, and I’m just adding in some additional needleweaving to decorate the holes. Of course, you can also leave the square holes empty.
What if you want to start, but want a more organized guide to hardanger? You can check out my post, Hardanger, which includes a lot of links, including Nordic Needle’s extensive tutorials, overviews, and designs. You can check out my post, O Canada, which talks about The Victoria Sampler’s line of instructional kits. And there’s also a small hardanger course at Needlework Tips & Techniques.
For a disorganized introduction, I’m going to do some closeup photos with number labels. I will then provide some links to the stitch directions.
There’s a few more stitches I really want to try, so you’ll be seeing this sampler again sometime. You can check my Hardanger category for more posts on the subject.
embroidery for ducks 