Monday 21 December 2009

Needlelace tree ornament - Elizabethan style of stitching

Well I’ve finished my major distraction from what I’m supposed to be working on here:

Christmas Tree 1

I enjoyed making it. As you can see in this close-up, I used 3 needles for the DBH on the left.

It was all worked in a hoop, then I cut it out with tabs, sprayed glue on the whole thing to mount it on this Mache tree thing that I bought for less than a quid (one pound). Once I pulled it into position, I let it dry then cut the tabs off.

Christmas Tree 2

The middle green part is Shell Stitch. I love that stitch worked as it is here, back and forth.

I decided to limit my colours to 4 to create unity plus that would make the gold stand out more too. I finished the sides with some narrow French lace that I had in my stash. (I haven’t taken good close-ups of that because that part had to be a little rushed.)

Christmas Tree 6

Here’s a better look at the couching down of some wool. The thing to remember about couching is, if you’re holding everything correctly, its very fast indeed. This part took me less than 15 minutes! Its not the neatest it could be, but I was in a desperate hurry by then.

You can spend forever on these things but I’ve found the point is not to become really obsessive but to think things through thoroughly beforehand for each stage, to learn lots, and move on.

On a separate note: I plan to overhaul this blog over the holidays. Its been brought to my attention that I need to give fuller explanations for previous posts. I keep a notebook with all my research and things, TG!

Thursday 10 December 2009

Considering Buttonhole Stitch

Hi! I'm in the process of moving this page further on in my blog as I have expanded on it. Hope to finish this in the next couple of days. beth 12/01/10 For the time being I'm leaving these 2 images on here to help readers.
This is a rotated image of how to do Buttonhole correctly as for Right-handed stitching.
This is the correct way for Left-handed stitching.
Basically you have to work towards your dominate side, whichever that is.
Considering Buttonhole Stitch

this is what i mean

Tuesday 1 December 2009

I found the original link to the image of the bag I posted on here: The bag's in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, they published 'Twixt Art & Nature' if you recall.. Here's the link: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/euwb/ho_1986.300.1.htm I would like to say here, now, that I don't want my life to be taken over by an all-consuming obsession you understand, but I would very much like to decipher how they made the bag and plot my findings on here. Needless to say, I'm most interested in the "elaborately embroidered surface decoration". I didn't want to say it before because I suppose I'm interested in so many things and was scared to commit, if you know what I mean? Trouble is though, that I don't have a lot of time for it, but gradually, hopefully, in tiny incremental steps, I would really love to somehow OWN THAT BAG! Apart from that, just finding out how-on-earth they made it is what excites me most, and all the ideas that hopefully stem from that journey... I'm going to write to the Museum's Costume Institute and ask if they could possibly send me larger images. I'm going to draw it soon, in detail, in coloured washes. I've started my preliminary sketches (aka mad scribbles!!!). If you'd like to see how many gorgeous bags that Museum has in its vaults, just get a load of this bunch of thumbnails: http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/the_costume_institute/listview.aspx?page=1&sort=0&sortdir=asc&keyword=bag&fp=1&dd1=8&dd2=0&vw=1