Saturday, March 28, 2015

Happy Spring!

Even though the leaves are just starting to come out and the patio furniture is still covered, it is spring at my house. The little embroidery that I teased you with two weeks ago is done and back from the framer early. I'm so excited because it turned out wonderful.

This tiny landscape was was a multi step process--painting silk, stiffening fabrics and threads, embroidering backgrounds, and working with water soluble fabric. It was all new to me, but I love the results. My landscape may be a little overwhelmed by flowers, but that is because I was trying all of the techniques outlined in Creative Hand Embroidery and Hand Embroidered Country Scenes by Sue Newhouse. Since this is a practice piece, I wanted to practice as many flowers as possible.

The finished piece is just 3 inches by 4 inches.

 

I've had these two books for at least a dozen years, but it was working on the Inspirations piece that I did in December that made me want to explore landscapes in a more determined way.

 

Sue's books are fantastic. My piece is a conglomeration of the meadow practice pieces that she has in each book. Between the two books, she goes step by step with you through the process of creating your own little scene. I loved the details on making grass and flower heads with stiffened thread. I had no idea how they would turn out, but they are fun to do and really fun to work with. I also loved embroidering the daisys on water soluble fabric, washing out the fabric and then attaching stems and re-stiffening them. It was a lot of steps, but worth the effort. Now that I've tried the techniques I can't wait to do more, and just one look at the wonderful projects her students have done, which fill her books, provides plenty of inspiration on dealing with tricky subjects.


I've plucked half a dozen landscapes off the internet over the last three years that I eventually want to explore in stitches. They range from what I think are easy subjects to much more complex. I'm looking forward to the challenge and since I bought three more shadow boxes, I'm ready to start.

 

Finally, I am giving a shout out to Michaels in Belmar, west of Denver. I was quite nervous about dropping this piece off to be framed there, but since it was a practice piece, I figured I would try. They did a FANTASTIC job and it was inexpensive since I bought a ready made frame. I'm thrilled! You will definitely be seeing more little world's come to life this year.

2 comments:

  1. This is absolutely gorgeous, Margo....your experiment is a triumph! I look forward to seeing more of these :)

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