Needlequest Update - 14 July 2014

How are you getting along with this month's Needlequesst theme?  Here's the little work I've done so far (busy, as expected, on the Ring Cushion project).  The first photo is a black and white version of the Chinese tea crockery I decided to use.  The second photo shows it turned into a 'Charcoal and Chalk' sketch with Photoshop elements, which is useful in simplifying the tones in the pots as the red parts are the darkest.

This last shot is the quick charcoal sketch I made myself last night.  It isn't too bad for a very quick attempt, but far from accurate!!  I won't be really using this sketch to work from as such, but it did help me to appreciate the tonal differences in the pots, although you can't see them too well from my poor shading!!!

So, what about you?  How is your work coming along for this month?  Or any other Needlequest month.  Please leave any relevant links!=)

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2014

COMPLETE change of mind!

Friends of our are celebrating their golden wedding on Friday and, well, you just can't get that go by without a card, right? I thought I'd use Mary Corbet's charming tudor style rose and work it up in yellows and outline in gold. Here's the pattern traced and the threads selected:

And I was going to mount it in a nice, square, gold card blank. Was going to look stunning!

However, as soon as I'd got a few little bits of the darker yellow in, although the colour looked great, I simply wasn't working it well and wasn't really in the mood for that type of work..... So, out it came from the hoop, it got put away for later use (I still love the idea and my colourway for it, so I hope to come back to it some time later on), and I got out my pastel pencils and ribbon collection. This is the result:

A BIG change in direction, huh??!

Struggling with the fish

Urgh! I'm really not getting along with this piece at all! Especially not the fish! It's just not flowing well and I can't get into it. I'll be really glad when it's done and out of the way, but that won't happen until I sit down and manage to make myself focus on completing it.

Sigh!

Anyway, you can see how little stitchery I've got done over the last few weeks since I last posted a WIP update. Haven't touched the cross stitch either. I've been in a book mood of late and have been reading and studying to my heart's content. Of course, I've been doing one subject, then another, then back again later as an how the fancy took me, but that's just fine as I don't have to do any of them, it's all for pleasure and those things I do really have to do, I do OK anyway.=) So, if anyone's thinking of posting the usual kind, but unnecessary comforting comments, there's no need. I'm NOT feeling guilty and I'm NOT being hard on myself about it! LOL!

Something else I've been getting into more of late is art and, although I set it going about 9 months ago, I hadn't yet posted the link to my art learning blog. There, I have now!! There's not a great deal on it thus far beyond a few bits of pastel pencil work and a pen sketch I did the other day, but there's a small gallery of past pieces of work that may be of some passing interest. As anyone who takes a look will see, I'm no great shakes at art, but I'm never going to be unless I do more of it and that's where I always come undone. If I'm not great at something first time, I find it hard to go back and keep at it. Never learned to work as a child as the first ten years of school was easy for me and I either got top grades or ones good enough for no-one to spot I wasn't making much effort and was, therefore, actually underachieving! I actually should have got As for all my subjects.....!!! So, get on with it for a change, huh??

I'm going up to Leeds for the rest of the week and I think I'll take the needlepoint giraffe with me to finish if I feel like it. I've thought of someone to make it into a nice cushion/pillow for, so there's more motivation to get it done now and a finish would be a nice thing. It's been rather a long time..... (I didn't take it after all. My hand was hurting, so I decided against it.)

'Winter’ finished

I’ve finished stitching the Lizzie*Kate ‘Winter’ button-up piece. Anyone familiar with the design will see that it’s been thoroughly de-Christmassed in that I’ve omitted the Christmas stocking and the star on the tree as well as not put the red beads on the tree, so it’s much more neutral now. DH is going to try and find some way of displaying it in a temporary mount on the wall, which will be nice.


I also did this pastel picture as a copy from a photograph. I couldn’t get to sleep one night and found I was thinking about art and getting on with some, so I got up and made a start on this one. We’re going to put a little mount around that too and pop it on the wall.


Haven’t made a lot of progress on the stumpwork, as you can see here. I think I’m preferring very easy things at the moment, like cross stitch, but that may have something to do with being so dratted tired and a bit sick of using my weary brain for school and just taking care of ordinary things which, as anyone whose lived abroad will know, can be a strain when you have to do it in another language! Anyway, I did some of it yesterday and hope to get a bit more done by and by.


I’ve been reading quite a bit again and finished ‘The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless’ by Eliza Haywood yesterday. It was the first 18th century novel I’d read for a long time after quite a number of Victorian sensation novels, so it seemed a bit slow at times, but it had its thrills. If what one reads there is anything to go by, adultery and all manner of clandestine encounters were very common amongst the middle and upper classes in those days! Seems the lower classes led the way in morality!! Of course, today, there's not much conception of morals at all and what's socially acceptable, or just what one can get away with, is often mistaken for what’s actually right......

Last C&G Sample and Colour Display

This is the last of the Samples Project I'm able to share with you. Today was the last working day at College and I really only went to prepare my display, which took most of the day to mount!! This sample was meant to be of manipulated fabric techniques, but I confess, I didn't finish it and get to that part. I've posted this one before to some degree, but here it is in the full line up. The sources were a sapling opposite our flats and a bird table I found on-line. Here we have a pastel picture of the two together, then a collage using painted papers etc, and then the sample which is worked in over-dyed threads (yes, GAST and WDW) on a fabric painted background. A bit lurid and makes it look springlike when it's meant to be autumnal, but it could be worse!!

Below is the Colour Module display that I've done for the College end of year exhibition next week. The photo was awful as my new camera just won't take indoor pix without blurring them horribly. I couldn't manage with the old one - having to hold the battery door shut - in the middle of the studio etc. DH is getting me a lovely new one that will take pictures in dim light and all sorts - great for museum collections where photography is sometimes allowed, but lights are low and flashes a no-go. I just got this pic to show it all together. I think I'll try and take a better one when I bring it home and can use the old camera on it, but you can see how I put in white mounts for most pieces and also used some other colours of card and paper to tone in with the artwork and samples etc. Do you think it works?

So, that's it for City & Guilds for me for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure if I'll go back after our year away and re-start as the whole programme is changing and, whilst it seems somewhat less work and not too bad, I just don't know. We'll see.

Now that's out of the way, I can get back to some of my 'regular' stitching. =)

Some more artwork

Nothing stitchy to show just yet, (although I really must get on with some!), but here are some more of the art and design pieces I've done for my C&G work. Hope you like them at least a little bit. :) Paper-based art isn't my forté, (mostly as I don't do enough of it to develop any real level of skill), but I quite enjoy it anyway, which is the main thing.

This first one is a pastel painting of the centre of a flower which I did to be part of my colour resolved design work investigating tones and tints. This was the tints one - pale colours with 'white added'.

This one, obviously, is a collage of the Taj Mahal using fancy and metallic papers and card. The idea from here was to reproduce it with manipuated fabric techniques (part of the 'Texture' module) in trapunto. This was the one I tried to do using silk paints, but where the silver and clear guttas let me down to a mortifying degree and, after wasting a couple of hours on painstaking tracing of the outline - twice! - I had to throw the whole disaster into the bin in despair as the silk paint leaked through every single line of gutta! It didn't do that with the gold of the same brand, but the silver and clear, with their huge applicator openings that forced me to apply it with a paintbrush, were hopeless. I was, if you'll excuse the pun, gutted!

This last one is a piece of art nouveau jewelry which was to be reproduced in beads covering a large-ish button (just about an inch in diameter). It's drawn in pastel pencil, which I seem to do a lot better with than regular pencils of any type or colour and, I must say, I'd rather like a pendant like this!!

Coloured Broderie Anglaise Sample

One more sample done.=) Sadly, I can't find the source image at the moment as my laptop has died (we think the motherboard has gone - RIP Laptop!) and it's on there rather than the PC I'm posting from right now. Once I can get at the laptop's hard-drive to take my files, contacts and bookmarks off, I can add it in here, but for now I'll have to just present the pastel painting of the source photo, which doesn't look too much different from the real thing, and the stitched sample. This time we have a broderie anglaise piece worked in colour (as opposed to the traditional white on white) and on a piece of fabric that I dyed back in Decemeber.

Here also are a drawing and a collage of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, UK, where Zeferelli's 'Jane Eyre' was filmed and which also appeared in the 2005 film version of 'Pride and Prejudice'. This was work for the first sample in the 'Texture' module, although I got no further than a total of 3 pieces of art for that!


Neither are spectacular, but the shapes are generally OK. I think the drawing is really lacking depth of colour in the main - the walls are too insipid, but I seem a bit short of serviceable grey shades of pencil, other than standard graphite. Art materials are one of the many things that are cheaper in Taiwan, so I'll stock up a bit there - and probably get a new laptop there as well.

Before my laptop did totally die (after 2 'sick' periods), I was able to do some pruning on my blog and deleted over 80 posts that were really saying nothing and editted probably as many. So, about 30% of it has now gone, which should make finding stuff and reading back for new visitors that much easier.

More art and stitching photos to come soon as I have also been working on the autumn tree sample and have taken photos of some other design/artwork that I've been doing for the C&G and will post that in spates with stitching WIPs.

'Line' Module Resolved Artwork

OK, let's hope it loads properly this time.

I did my line artwork based on seahorses. Here are 4 of the 5 pix I did - the 5th was pants! I meant to do it focusing in on the linear aspect of the plant life in the pic, but just ended up with a really wishy-washy piece instead!

IDIOT! (Lots of photos)

I can't believe I did this, but I actually managed to irretrievably delete 2 old posts whilst trying to change the labels on them! Thankfully, I have some idea what they were about, so I'm going to re-hash them here so as not to lose the record.

The first is the first sample from my C&G Colour module, which was a flower border. Here it is from source image, through rubbishy gouache painting (first time using this kind of watercolour) to finished piece of stitchery:

Second was my silk-painted, 'quilted' hibiscus sample (#8 for my C&G) and here's the photo collection from source image, through artwork to finished sample.

I was going to add in some artwork from a previous resolved piece, but I can't get the image to move. I may well have over-done the amount of images allowed per post, so that'll have to wait until next time. I will now add the correct labels and try, in future, not to do such dumb things again! Duhhhh!

I went through my kits yesterday and started to plan which to take with me East this summer. Some of them will get packaging dumped and instructions scanned/re-typed and designs transferred etc first - anything to keep the weight down! 20kg of stuff, plus 7kg (and a laptop) cabin baggage is not much for a year! Glad EVA allow you to take a laptop as a separate piece of hand luggage, although it might be a challenge getting that through the airports, which are strictly one piece in the UK. We'll think of something.=) Yes, Von, I agree that this could well be the reason no job came up. I was rather thinking that myself....

Lots of college work done

Spent much of yesterday and some of the evening before getting well on with my C&G work. It's often just 'getting around to it' that's the problem here. Yes, like someone commented, some of the stuff isn't to my taste, but I just bear in mind that I'm learning techniques that I can apply to things I do like in the future. I don't really count much of the C&G stuff as stitching, so to speak, it's just college work!! Stitching is the projects I choose to do!! Yes, I have been known to get sick of gifts as well, although I never make and give something I personally don't like. I can be quite particular about designs, (although I find that less now that I've moved away somewhat from the cross-stich world, with all its holiday and patriotic designs that all leave me cold), but I do like a lot of things and can always find something nice to do for someone. If not, I can design it!=)

Anyway, here's what I did all clumped together in one photo for the time being as no one piece has been completed. There's work on 3 samples/designs here - artwork for all of them (I did one drawing, which isn't finished yet - I want add more detail and make it more 'mature', one pastel picture and 2 collages, although one of these has as much gouache painting as anything!! And I spilled my dirty painting water all over it....) and fabric preparation for 2 - one painted and one bonded. Both of these came out a bit brighter than I really wanted, but it's supposed to be a learning process, so I don't mind that much. I'm more concerned about getting the dratted stuff done, to be honest!

Post Zusammenfassung in Deutsch:

Gestern und vorgestern habe ich viele Arbeit für mein City & Guilds Stickereikurs gemacht. Nichts ist jetzt fertig, aber ich habe der Design und Kunst für 3 Sache fertig gemacht und der Stoff für 2 vorbereitet. Ein ist gemahlt and ein zusammen geklebt.

Ich studiere diesen Kurs bei Harrogate College (eine Berufschule). Es macht mir viel Spass, aber manchmal gefällt es mir nicht so was wir tun muss - zu modern für mich. Ich hab' tradionelle Stickerei am liebsten und fühle oft, dass ich sticken muss was ich nicht besonders mag. Tja, so ist es eben! Ich lerne viele neue Sache die ich später für etwas schöner nutzen kann.=)

中文:

我昨天和前天作了很多学院的事。这种事算是‘功课’吗？=）我读的是刺绣课程。挺喜欢，可是有时候太现代式。我更喜欢的是比较漂亮的东西。

这张照片是最近作的艺术事（设计部分）和准备快要绣的布。

我昨天和前天作了很多學院的事。這種事算是‘功課’嗎？=）我讀的是刺繡課程。挺喜歡，可是有時候太現代式。我更喜歡的是比較漂亮的東西。

這張照片是最近作的藝術事（設計部分）和準備快要繡的布。

Backwards, forwards and right here and now!

Oof, another year all but gone - one and a bit more days and it's 2009 already! DH asked me what I thought of the year last night and, whilst I won't go into most of what we talked about here (not 'on-topic'!), I did mention that I felt I'd hardly produced any proper stitching this year! 'Tis too true!=( All I've done is 5 things (2 very small), plus finished off one left over from last year and made up a cushion/pillow cover also left over from last year and got 2 counted thread pieces in progress, (<- here's the current status on the Goldfinches BTW). That's not counting my City & Guilds samples, of course, but I don't really count them that much as normal stitching, but as college work.

So, in detail, what did I do?

Finishing from 2007:

* Finished off 'Bluetits and Seedheads' cross stitch (see here)
* Made up 'Child of Spring' cushion/pillow (photo here)

New in 2008:

* 'Branches of Your Life' card (finish pic here). I did a couple of tiny bits on this in 2007, but it was mostly an '08 project.
* 'Rose Arch' ribbon work, finished into a thank-you card (view here unmounted)
* A simple goldwork dragonfly, (see here), which I still haven't used for anything and is rather too big for a card.
* Helen M Stevens' 'Ornamental Pool' piece (link here)
* Hardanger 'Flowers and Leaves' cushion/pillow (pic here before making up)
* 8 City & Guilds samples

Started this year, but still unfinished:

* 'Goldfinches and Thistles' cross stitch (see above for photo)
* 'Silver Frost' band sampler design (see 2 posts ago for latest WIP pic)
* 2 or 3 more City & Guilds samples (plus more not even started yet...)

Plans for 2009 stitching wise are:

* Finish all WIPs, including C&G stuff
* Get my C&G work done in time, (mid-May for this year's work)
* Do a hardanger cushion for my Taiwanese friend
* Stitch something for my 2nd sister before she goes abroad for a year, preferably something with practical use.
* Take several kits with me when we go back to Taiwan in late August/early September, should all go according to plan, that is!!!
* DH's 10th anniversary card - probably a CQ heart.
* Do some small pieces that I want to do. No more obligation stitching!

Here's my first ever acrylic painting that I had to do as part of the eternal C&G work. I can't say that I'm over-enamoured of it, but it'll do as a first time with the paints and the colours worked out OK. The edges of the colour variations within the petals are nothing short of awful, but, as with most art courses, you get given a subject and a medium and just told to get on with it, you don't get any instruction on how to use that medium! I've now borrowed a book from Leeds City Art Library on acrylics for beginners, so I have an idea how colours can be worked together. I would say that, in the main, I enjoy the course, but I still rather wish I hadn't started it (I knew this would happen.....) as it's just so much work and I feel quite bogged down with it at the mo. I just don't seem able to keep up well at all, even though many of the others do. There's at least one who struggles more than me to keep up, so I'm not the furthest behind, or wasn't at last count anyway!!! Anyway, here's the current state of the stitched piece this will be. It's to be cut-back appliqué, so here are 4 layers of fabric tacked together and waiting to be machine stitched. You can just see the blue markings on it if you look closely. I'm rather nervous of my machine though as it goes so fast....

More soon, I hope!=)

Contemporary shadow work (aka textile collage)

Finally got another C&G sample done. This is #10 and it was called 'shadow work', but is nothing like the traditional closed herringbone stitch style. This is really a textile collage with bondaweb, worked between 2 sheets of sheer fabric. I'm going to post the photos in a line straight down the page as I'm finding that the line spacing varies so much from screen to screen that a posting I do on my widescreen laptop looks really over-spaced on the PC, whereas a PC spaced one looks all clumped up on the laptop. As I want everyone to see it looking decent, this is the only way I can think to do it!!

So, you can see here the usual piece of artwork taken from a digital image/photo, but this time re-worked in tissue paper collage, then translated into fabric. The white lines in the collage and stitched piece are meant to represent glasshouse window edges. The idea was that it was to be as if seen through a conservatory window. It worked out better for those students who had a 'further away' type of picture and could get a good window structure in, but mine doesn't look too good. Also, for some reason the white fabric seemed to get some dirt on it, seemingly whilst I was machining it. I don't much like collage, but I can tolerate it for the time being. There are a LOT of them in the module we're going on to do - texture. Ugh! I can't say I'm over-enamoured of machine work either, but that's partly as I'm not used to it and partly as my mum's machine doesn't go very slowly at all! It's either fast or super fast.=(

Photo explosion!

I haven't really been doing that much stitching of late, but I have been doing a lot of design work for the C&G and mounting of the line module etc, so have taken some pix to show you.

This is the box I presented my work in. It's just an ordinary purple box file, (with the internal clip affair removed by DH and his trusty drill!), covered with white mulberry paper, then trimmed up with the wrapping samples.

I didn't bother doing lots of pix of the mounted stuff as you've mostly seen it, but here's the beading one as an example, and probably the most interesting one that's all on one piece of A4 card. I also haven't got the eternal peacock feather done as it's very boring and long-winded, but our teacher was OK about that and said to make sure and show it to her when done. Here's what it looks like so far - like a cartoon kid with spiky hair!!!

We had to do a resolved design piece and this is what I came up with, although it's rather lacking in real design element and is concentrating mostly on various linear things. I did it in a little home made folder, which ties up with ribbon, and you can see here.

We've now moved on to the 'Colour' module and the theme is flowers and gardens. We'd to get a photo of some sort to work from and I got one from good old Google Images. We'd then to do a piece of artwork in acrylics. Well, I've bought more than enough stuff for this course, so used my gouache instead (a kind of opaque watercolour paint) and came up with this baby. Not brilliant, but it grew on me as the day went on. (Will post that later as I can't find the photo I just took on the computer.....)

Next stage was a bit of silk painting of the background fabric for the sample, then we'd to start on the stitching. She showed us stem and fly stitches, and bullion and French knots (both a bit different from my own, I think). Nothing new for me there, of course. I didn't get time to get on to the actual stitching, but here's the painted background with the threads I plan to use.

Last week sometime (I think! It's been such an age since I last posted!) I did a couple more rows on the band sampler. The middle of them couldn't exactly be called 'done' as I could only do 2 rows of cross stitches before the beading section, which is all being left until the end. So, here's what that looks like at the mo.

Hope to get some work in on all 3 current projects over the weekend and have more to show next week.

Samples 3, 5 & 6 complete

Thanks for the compliments on Sid the Snake (not Wily, Susan!!!), I rather enjoyed working on him from start to finish. Only sample number 2 to get finished now, the long overdue peacock feather. In the meantime:

Here's the finished, 'distressed' version of the tiger skin piece. Not very impressive is it? Wasn't anything special to start with, but now it looks a real mess!!!

This is the small, simple sample we did in class yesterday and I think many of us will use our wrapped cords to decorate the boxes we'll be submitting our 'Line' modules in. When I look at several of my samples etc, I really do fail to see any real, concentrated linear work in them, but I'll try and bring some of that out more when mounting the pieces etc. I picked my favourite pink and purple colours to use here and it was good to get some more of my Pearl #5s into use.

This is sample #3. It's meant to be of appliqué and layering, but whilst there are certain areas that have about 6 layers of sheer fabric, I think the peacock feather (#2) will answer this technique as well. It's supposed to be a butterfly near some buddleia, but the plant is really not well done and I know the butterfly is rather over-simple. Lack of time and umph, I suppose. When you're not really happy with a sample, you don't much feel like putting loads more work into it!! The leaves are much nicer colours in the real thing. Light was poor when I took the pix. This is the drawing, (done with Inktense pencils and black felt tip pen) that I took it from. I confess to having traced this from the source photograph rather than waste loads of time trying to get the shape right.

The bulk of yesterday's work was on the so-called 'resolved piece', design board exercise. I have trouble with this description as it's really just a number of pieces of art based on one or two source photos and, given that we aren't really meant to develop it for stitich - not even to plan it to stitch, I can't see how it's in any way 'resolved'. Sometimes the logic behind the terminology escapes me, so if anyone can clarify this, please do!!=) I didn't get far with it as art is not my string point as yet and I had an accident shortly before leaving the flat yesterday morning. My right little toe had a high speed collision with the edge of the fireplace and would now make a great source for a colour module exercise!!! I can walk better on it today and it should give little trouble by Monday, but I was feeling rather worse for the shock to the system etc yesterday. It's certainly not broken anyway, so there's nothing to worry about and I had my viola lesson sitting down afterwards!!!

We're hoping to go and spend a year in Taiwan from Aug/Sept next year, so I hope that works out. Whilst I'm there, I'll be able to have a go at some of the bead based crafts that are big in that part of the world and also do some research for the C&G Diploma level written work, when you have to produce studies into three countries with strong embroidery traditions. I'm planning on doing China, Norway and Brazil. If funds allow, I'll see about doing C&G level 2 stumpwork during that year away too, but money is always a major factor, so I may well not get to that and just end up taking lots of kits with me to work through and enjoy.

Hoping to get the peacock feather done over the weekend and also a couple of pieces of seahorse-y art done for this design brief business, then I just need to get and cover a suitable box and mount all the work so far. Ooof, there's a lot to do! I've had no chance to do more than a single row on my band sampler!

Sample 4 completed - snakeskin beadweaving

I seem to be catching up on my C&G samples in reverse order just now!! I put Sample 5 (see last post) through the wash this weekend and it is now frayed and, whilst it was never overly impressive, it now looks really rubbish! Just need to trim a few stray threads and press it, but I will try to avoid that kind of thing where possible in future. Really not my scene at all.

Sample number 4 was based on reptiles, so I hunted on-line and found a terrific snake to work from. What do you think of this chap? He's rather cute in his own way, isn't he?

From our source material we had to do some artwork as ever and I just did a section of the last 2½ coils, from which I drew up a beading chart. This kinda taught me how to do charts for things like cross stitch, needlepoint and so on as well, so I think I may well be able to do that after all. Given that cross stitch is about the world's most popular form of embroidery, being able to create charts may even create some income one day?? But I wouldn't hold my breath there!!

Using a beading loom, which you can see here all threaded up and ready for use, the chart was then turned into a piece of beadweaving. I took this photo whilst doing one of the later rows. You string all the needed beads for one row onto the needle, then, from underneath, slot them between the warp threads. After that, you go back through the row with the beading needle and thread, taking care to go over the warp threads this time. Then it's on to the next row.

This is the finished piece, with each bead kind of representing a scale on the original picture and this is the beading needle when I'd finished. It was straight when I started!!! I didn't think I'd like this and most of the ladies in our first year group were saying that they couldn't see themselves doing this again, how it hurt their eyes etc, but I really enjoyed this and didn't find it any bother to my eyes at all. The only hassle was that the beading thread I used, a nylon wire sort of thread, may have been rather thicker than would have been more comfy to use. One of the other teachers who popped in last week to see what we were doing etc said that you had to take the needle back through the whole row at once, but I wasn't able to do that as it got caught and was impossible to pull through. Don't think it made any difference to the finished sample though. I'm hoping to get a nice, little bead loom as I think this type of this has definite potential, as long as you don't mind using lots of beads and remember that the beads are higher than they are wide, so about 2 high would equal 3 wide. Different from the exact squareness of your regular cross stitch!