Today I have for you two little paintings with a little something extra. After the paint dried, I worked some embroidery stitches into the design
Two Pansies:
Two Pansies with embroidered faces.
Test paper with additional glazes added. Semi-abstract.
Same painting embroidered with fly stitch.
The second painting was extra fun. I used a variegated cotton thread by Sulky. The thread was held double.
What fun stuff are you making today?
Earlier this week, a friend of a friend asked me to help him mend the holes in his favorite jeans. He didn’t bring any patches along, so I just used needle and thread to weave across one of the holes as a demonstration. That got our conversation started about the concept of visible mending.
The artist I was thinking about is Celia Pym.
An article and some images of her work can be found here:
The conversation reminded me that I had set aside a pair of jeans of my own that were now holey at the knees.
Perhaps the universe is telling me it’s time to start this project. Despite having an abundance of UFFOs littering my studio, I began working on the jeans.
First of all, I wanted to incorporate patches over the weak-at-the-knees areas. Having been told in the past NOT to throw away fabric scraps, I was able to find some interesting scraps already coated with fusible glue.
It took me less than 30 minutes to fussy-cut some flowers that could cover the holes. I added even more patches just to create a colorful floral field on the denim.
I do intend to embroider over the patches. This will serve to strengthen the patches and unify the design a little bit.
It’ll take me a few evenings to get all the hand stitching done. But first, I wanted to address the torn logo on the back of the jeans.
These are Levis jeans but the leathery label on the waistband is nearly gone. I used a small pair of scissors with a sharp point to cut away the remaining bits and thread.
Next I made a label of my own and stitched it into place.
Yesterday I purchased a variety pack of pearl cotton thread in shades of pink, purple, aqua, blue and yellow. I’m really looking forward to jazzing up these tired old jeans.
Despite my moodiness, I managed to complete a little knitting project this week. The pattern for this knitted and beaded collar, above, is found in 60 QuickLuxury Knits, published in 2014 by the editors of Sixth and Spring Books. I suspect that it is now out of print. I bought mine through an on-line used book store.
There are likely to be similar pattern on Ravelry.com.
As I was knitting, I thought about the late Justice Ginsberg and her iconic fashion (and political) statement collars.
Mine was made with some fingering weight yarn found in my stash. The charcoal yarn is a blend of silk and wool. The pink is a blend of rayon and wool. The beads are 6/0 glass seed beads in a color called Red Rainbow, from the local hobby store.
I hope I get to wear mine soon. One couldn’t choose a better role model than RBG.
In his Guide to Birds, David Sibley describes the gray catbird’s song thusly:
” …a rambling, halting warble with slow tempo…low hoarse notes with high sharp chips and squeaks interspersed….little repetition and little mimicry.”
…..which is, while accurate, a rather dry and technical explanation for what I heard that day:
In my final arrangement of this fiber object, I ditched the blue fabric which I was going to use as a framework for the “notes and chips.” Instead, I let the purple satin cord act as a highway for the eye to travel to each vocal outburst. I also unified the color of the lower section by overpainting the batik print using violet.
The free motion stitching wasn’t overly planned. I mostly just followed the clues given by the appliques and the color changes in the background.
I hope you enjoy “seeing” this catbird’s song, as much as I enjoyed listening to it.
Ever since I wove a small tapestry on a hand-made loom, I’ve mused about weaving threads over a water color painting. So today I am playing around with the idea.
I started with this 4 by 6 painting I did last December.
It’s an exercise from Kateri Ewing’s book Watercolor is for Everyone. After drawing two columns of randomly sized rectangles, the artist applies selected colors, reversing the order of application in the second column.
I thought this painting would be a good background for my proposed thread embellishment because of its rectilinear structure. To start, I poked holes at regular intervals along the outside vertical edges. Next I stitched a zigzag pattern across the painting with no. 3 cotton twist thread in a gold color.
Now what, I asked myself. How about creating points along the thread intersections by tying knots? Okay. For this step I chose a dark cool green shade.
To further reinforce the intersections, I painted shapes with a metallic paint.
Not a bad way to spend a quiet afternoon. It was soothing and meditative. It reminded me of those picture stitch cards that I worked as a girl when learning how to sew.
Now I have a brand new perspective on what is possible with paint and thread.
You can learn about Kateri Ewing’s work here:
Daily Fiber 