hand embroidery – Page 2

This Week’s Work – mostly painting

Posted on November 17, 2024 by Laura Kate

My week was not typical at all. I spent 3 days in a watercolor workshop led by Sonya Terpening. It was a bit of a rollercoaster for me. On the one hand, my confidence seemed to improve. On the other hand, I found the environment a bit chaotic, so it was difficult to focus. I found myself rushing to finish instead of taking my time.

Anyway, here she is. I call this work Woman in a Shawl.

The reference photograph is mine. I had asked my daughter to serve as the model for a shawl I knit back in 2022.

Other sketches I completed this week, taken from lessons by Kateri Ewing in her book Watercolor is for Everyone.

Dream Feathers

Tiny Being of Light

And finally, I just finished the mid-tone layer on my portrait of Reggie the Dog.

I’m pretty happy with the dog at this stage. Darks and shadows will be added this week, if I have time before we leave for Madison.

I’m also happy that I finished embroidering a panel on my Dragonfly art quilt.

You will likely not be able to detect any difference from the photo I posted last week, since all of the stitching was in the background. Now I am moving on to this panel.

This one makes me so happy, because the background is a profusion of flowers and leaves. Embroidering it will be sheer pleasure.

Thank you for visiting, and please do share your own creative projects.

hand embroidery, knitting, painting

This Week’s Work – Branching out

Posted on November 9, 2024November 15, 2024 by Laura Kate

In week three, The Artist’s Way has me focus on Recovering a Sense of Power. The words for focusing are Anger, Synchronicity and Shame. In Watercolor is for Everyone, the daily practice work seems to be mostly representational, as opposed to abstract.

I am also sharing my fiber work from this week. Let’s start with that.

Knitting: I’m a bit errant in not posting about my newest project. I’ve chosen a cowl design by Andrea Mowry. It’s super lovely.

I’ll do a full post on this project next week.

I have also returned to an art quilt that has been languishing since last year. I call it Here be Dragons. This week, I spent my evenings hand-quilting one of the panels.

Bill’s photographs provided the reference for my dragonflies. The background and dragonflies were painted onto white cotton fabric with textile paint and micron pens. Next I embroidered detail on the dragonflies. The final step is to work embroidery stitches into the background as a way to marry together the three layers of the quilt. It is slow work, but I am determined to carry on and get this piece mounted and displayed before year end.

Here are the watercolor exercises completed this week.

This little landscape was based on a photo I took of a Wisconsin farm.

My magical hummingbird is inspired by Janet Weight-Reed’s beautiful hummingbird paintings. I used a photograph from this month’s National Geographic for reference.

Thank you for reading.

hand embroidery, recycling, sewing

Japanese Knot Bag

Posted on May 7, 2024May 7, 2024 by Laura Kate

Having recently finished a wall quilt, I found myself with various pieces of fabrics left over. Instead of stuffing them into a box and shoving the box under a bed, I decided to cut the fabric into strips for the purpose of sewing them into a project bag.

Back two years ago, I became interested in the Japanese art of stitching, aka sashiko and boro stitching. There was a pattern for a knot bag in this book by the Shibaguyz.

I did a post about it on Jan 5, 2022.

To make the bag, I would need fabrics for the base and lining, along with my strips of fabric. Fortunately, I had both. My daughter gave me some yardage of sturdy cotton flannel and my friend and co-worker Scott Perkins gave me a sample of raw silk.

Here is what I came up with using one quilt block made of a circle in a square. I then sewed strips of fabrics around it to cover all of the base and raw edges.

Fabric selection included bits of three men’s shirts. (The dark red and dark green strips, and the blue chambray behind the first circle.) All three of these fabrics had been worked into the Shell Lake Story quilt. So, I am using scraps of scraps!

My next step was to sew up a lining using the same pattern as the base.

A cellphone pocket in the lining.

Adding the hand stitching took a few weeks. I marked all the stitch lines with a chalk pencil. Using white Sashiko thread I worked a running stitch in straight lines on the strips and circles around the circles.

And here is the front and back of the bag after all the top stitching is in place.

Finally, the seams of bag and lining are sewn up, the bag inserted into the lining with right sides facing and the U-shaped top edges are sewn together. This last step took me two tries, btw, so seam ripping happened.

Turning the bag to the outside, the only remaining steps were to close the strap side seams and top-stitch the opening.

To use the bag, the long handle is threaded through the short handle.

A quick look at the lining before it is turned to the inside. I love the look of the silk, and it is pretty easy to handle. Fraying was the only thing that gave me some trouble. The next time I sew with silk, I will zigzag the seam allowances

Here is the completed knot bag, filled with a knitting project.

Front of bag as it hangs from a coat rack.

Back of bag.

This project was great fun (except for the seam ripping) and I would enjoy making more of these nifty bags. A larger size would be handy for bigger projects. And what a good way to use up scraps.

hand embroidery

WIP Wednesday: Dragonfly Quilt

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Laura Kate

It’s been more than two months since I’ve reported on progress with my dragonfly art quilt. For the last few weeks, I have been adding detail with embroidery.

In this stage, I am using various colors of thread, including a metallic, to outline the subjects’ bodies and fill in and outline the wings. The box of machine embroidery threads that I collected from my mother’s work room contains many beautiful threads that work well together with DMC floss to enhance my dragonflies. I’m so grateful to have received it from her.

I started my work with the main panel. In the painting stage, I had indicated the wings using faint lines in a sketchy manner. Ditto for the legs.

Now with metallic and matte threads held together, I stitched the delicate veining using (appropriately) the fly stitch. The legs were done in a black fuzzy thread, which helps to indicate the scaliness I observed in the original photograph.

I love the way the threadwork gives depth and liveliness to the painting.

After I’m finished embroidering the dragonfly bodies, I’ll sew on the border and backing. When that is complete, I’ll move on to hand quilting the whole thing.

hand embroidery, quilting

Re-entry

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Laura Kate

Last Wednesday, the husband and I returned from a very long journey. Over 13 days we drove over 3,000 miles, traveling through nine states. The climax of the trip was three days spent in Ohio, assisting my five siblings in sorting the parents’ household good in preparation for distribution and sale. It’s hard to describe the physical and emotional energy exhausted during that effort, so I won’t try. I wish I could show you a lot of great photographs from the trip, but I didn’t manage to get any worth sharing.

Back here in Oklahoma, it took me a few days to settle back into my normal life. The last few were spent working on hand embroidery of the Shell Lake quilt blocks. It was a good choice for my re-entry, because I could do it slowly while listening to podcasts and drinking lots of coffee. I think that I am done, but not sure. To give me some perspective on my work, I have photographed and posted each block. Let me know if you think the woven sections have enough stitches.

CENTER BLOCK

FOREST BLOCK

FIRE BLOCK

LAKE BLOCK

SKY BLOCK

On another topic, I have brought home a few UFO projects from my mother’s stash that I promised various people that I would finish. My plan is to post about each one as I work through them. If you’re not a fan of sewing and quilting, don’t jump ship yet. I will be continuing to explore watercolor painting, drawing and knitting in the coming months.