Bullion Knot Stitch

After taking a break for the past few weeks, I’m back again participating in Take a Stitch Tuesday sponsored by Pintangle.  I’ve missed: french knot, wheat ear stitch, crossed buttonhole, and half chevron.  This week’s stitch is bullion knot.  Since I’ve used french knot and wheat ear stitch quite a bit in my work, I decided to play with the other three stitches.  Crossed buttonhole and half chevron are completely new to me and although I have stitched bullion knots before, it was very long ago and not too often.  Bullion knots are so textural, that I wonder why I haven’t used the stitch.  It may be because they are so tricky to get smooth and even.  Thinking about the texture they create, I decided they would do nicely for mushroom gills.

They are stitched with #5 pearl cotton.  The result is a thick ridge which I like.

I decided on dimensional applique for the cap because of the weightiness of the gills.  A snippet of sari silk ribbon in an appropriate color was just what the mushroom needed.  The inside edge is gathered and left crinkly for more texture.  The sides of the stem are stitched in half chevron and the grass at the bottom is the crossed buttonhole.  Both stitches are more versatile than I had thought.  I can see how they can be very useful stitches.  They are great stitches to add to my repertoire.

Where does inspiration come from?

This is a question I often hear.  For every artist there is a different answer.  For me, the answer isn’t always the same for any piece of work that I make.  Take the paper dolls I just made.  The human figures were an extension of my previous work in cloth dolls.  They were a simple sketch away.  The animals were a little different.  I’ve done cats before and could have just adapted one of my earlier sketches, but I had something else to go with.  In my recent flurry of clothing making, a certain leftover bit of fabric had caught my eye.  It was a very simple shape.  To me it suggested “cat.”  I saved it knowing I would use that shape at some point.

I was sewing a pair of brown twill shorts.  If you’ve sewn before, you may recognize the shapes that were cut away to reveal the “cat” in the negative space.  There is the front to the left, the back to the right, and the pocket up on top forming the curve of the head and ears.  As soon as the cuts were made and the pieces moved off, that cat shape jumped out at me.  I instantly recognized possibilities and pinned my “cat” onto my design board for the future.

Part of nurturing creativity is being open to new ways of looking at the world and new ways of doing things.  There is inspiration all around us if only we open our eyes to the possible.

What unusual inspirations have you used lately?

Paper People/Paper Pets

A friend of mine who works in the Children’s division of the library has asked me to do a program making paper dolls at the end of the month.  Always ready to jump in with teaching children, I said yes.  I’ve done this before, but have given away all of the dolls that I made.  So I had to make more!

I started with collaging different papers onto poster board.  For the class we’ll use card stock, but I wanted to make more than one doll.  I also wanted to make more than dolls.  Susan asked for Paper People and Paper Pets.

Then comes tracing the templates onto the back and cutting out the pieces.

Then came the fun part of putting the pieces together and embellishing them.

This is a quick fun project to do with children.  I purposefully kept all the steps simple to make it a one hour program.  When there is time, I like to have the children draw their own people shapes.  For this program, we’ll have templates and stencils ready to trace.

Contemporary Rug Hooking

Exactly one week after the wedding, I took a rug hooking class with Gail Dufresne.  It was a wonderful class doing something different from what I have done before.  The class was sponsored by Contemporary Fiber Artists of Louisiana (CFAL).  I started out without any plan whatsoever.  My brain was too tired to plan, but  Gail made if easy for us.  She let us do our own thing.  Most of the people in the class knew what they were going to hook and had sketches all ready to go.  Not me.  I started with a blank canvas, literally.  The only marks I made were the edges.  That’s to keep them straight and along the grainline.  I decided to go free-form and to just begin hooking and see where it took me.  I started with the row of slate blue that runs diagonally down the center.  That row is a piece of wool remnant in my scrap bag.  It hooked OK but not as well as the other wools I used.  Mostly I experimented with other fibers.  So far, my “rug” has wool fabric, wool yarn, sari silk yarn, sari silk ribbon, silk roving, wool roving, and acrylic yarn.

It’s slow work.  It took me a while to get the rhythm and a smooth hooking motion.  Some held the hook with a pencil-type grip.  I preferred to hold it more like a crochet hook.  That made sense to me because the left hand underneath the canvas holds the strips or yarn in the same manner as for crochet.  The therapist in me thinks that this type of hook grasp will be easier on the joints.   Eventually, I will get faster.  Like hand embroidery, it’s a peaceful and relaxing occupation.

This is all I’ve managed to add to it in the past two weeks.  It will be a lengthy project.

Wedding dressing

Back to normal, whatever that may be.  My daughter Alison’s wedding is past and I am back in my studio creating again.  It’s been hard to get moving after all the festivities were over.  So many emotions!  It was a happy and joyful time and I feel very blessed by my family.

First up is to share pictures of the dresses I made for the events.  Alison was beautiful in the dress.  I have to admit to tears when she and her father walked down the aisle.

My own Lemon Drop Dress turned out as well as I had hoped.  See how the silk dupioni shines and shimmers.  It was comf0rtable to wear–much more so than the shoes.  I rarely, if ever, wear heels.  Alison’s dress needed only minimal work at the final fitting.

The last thing I added was a waist stay.  It’s a length of ribbon that is sturdy and snug which serves to support the weight of the skirt.  In place of a tag, I embroidered Alison’s name and the date of the wedding on the ribbon before sewing it in.  It’s hard to see, but if you click on the picture, you can get a close up shot.  The waist stay is tacked at each seam allowance through all layers except the outer ones (lace and satin) and then closed with a large hook.  Wedding dresses are very heavy and the waist stay takes the weight off the shoulder straps.  I also added a snap on a thread chain on each shoulder strap to keep bra straps from showing and more importantly to keep the dress straps on her shoulders from  falling down.  They worked like a charm.

I made this dress for the bridesmaid luncheon.  If you think it looks familiar, it’s because I used the same pattern that I drafted for the Lemon Drop Dress with a few changes.  The full skirt is pleated with one inch knife pleats all around and I substituted pleats for the darts on the bodice.  The surplice front was removed and I smoothed out the neckline.

Martha was busy sewing for the wedding too.

Martha and Tim, maid of honor and best man, ham it up for the camera at the Groom’s dinner the night before the wedding.  The dress is one of Martha’s designs.  It has french darts on the bodice and a cute keyhole at the back neck opening.  Martha had designed and sewn a dress for the bridesmaid luncheon too, but I forgot to get a picture of it.

Soon I’ll have some pictures of what I started in the rug hooking class that I took last weekend and perhaps from the sewing class that I am scheduled to teach tomorrow.

Stem Stitch

The Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge stitch for this week is stem stitch.  Stem stitch is the first embroidery stitch I learned.  It is the only one my mother taught me and the only one I used for many years.  It is a basic stitch that so many embroidery patterns depend on.  I’ve tried to experiment with different ways to use it.  Packed tightly together it is an alternative to satin stitch, last week’s TAST challenge stitch.

I like the way the shading blends with the rows of stem stitching.  “Sea Storm” is embellished with a piece of driftwood and some nuno felt from an earlier play day.

This guy is “Swimming at Midnight.”  He’s one of my totem figures.

With him are “Sailing Across the Desert” and “Singing in the Chorus.”

“Touch Me Not”

My sample for this week’s challenge stitch is another experiment with layering sheer fabrics.  This piece uses lace, organza, cheesecloth and netting held together with stem stitch.  I’m thinking this may be a good background for my Elemental Layers piece.

More Satin Stitch

I’ve pulled out some pictures of earlier dolls that feature satin stitch faces.  I’m not doing these as much as the simpler outline stitch faces now.  Satin stitch is much more involved, but it is a beautiful stitch.

The sun is one of my favorites.  I love his colors.

The moon is his companion.  Both the sun and the moon have handmade felt bodies.

“Sidelined by Fear” was shown at the International Quilt Festival with In Celebration of the Doll in 2010 and at the Textile Center with Figuratively Fiber in 2011.

“Reborn of Fire” was also  at the IQF but in the Treasures of the Gypsy Challenge 2009.  She won Best in Show and was purchased by Pamela Armas for her personal collection.