Eye Candy, Samples and Experiments

Plenty to see here, lots of visuals, I decided to make some samples, the following small rectangular pieces are all atc size. I had cut some backing fabric ages ago to this size when I first became quite excited about doing lots of swaps. Realising that I didn't want to do that many now, I decided a good use of these would be to do a series of experiments, which became samples and in turn became a sort of sampler.

This first one is needlefelted, the lighter shapes are pieces of my hand made paper that I have cut out and embellished between the layers of wool.

I decided to do some of these pieces as experiments in stitch.

Here is some more hand made paper shapes between the layers of fleece.

Some experiments in border stitches.

To break the monotony I decided to play with some free style stitching.

More handmade paper, this time just torn, more abstract.

Just playing with colour in chain stitch.

This was interesting, hand made paper circles outlined with stitching.

An image from Rock Art, simple stitching of outline.

A nice way to make a frame, stitching over a thick yarn which had been felted down to begin with.

I couldn't resist trying the circle idea again, it was so much fun to do.

An abstract piece, thinking primitive shapes.

Playing with stitches again over hand made paper square/diamond.

Framing a circle.

Hand made paper again, letting the abstract go free. I kept thinking standing stones, or doors when I was stitching these.

Voila! Here they all are stitched together, it is just a visual record of my ideas and experiments, to place on the wall to remind me of what is possible.

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Another Experimental Piece.

I just wish that I had taken pictures of this in progress, it would have been easier to explain and also to remember how it was done.

I began this piece by making a natural white/cream felted background. I was inspired by some stones that I have been sketching. I started to embellish some blue linen into the felt and then decided that I didn't want this effect over the whole piece. I experimented with different colours and then when I had finished what I felt was enough of an abstract background I decided to add some stitching, I did this with some hand dyed cotton which I dyed with rust/tin last year, it seemed to tie in perfectly with the colours that I wanted.

The next two pictures will let you in on a little technique I have discovered. This is the back of the piece. After stitching I felted some of my hand spun yarn down to make a rock art design. The beauty of this if you look closely at the following pictures is when it comes through to the right side it punches the design right over the stitching and it is slightly raised so you have another layer/texture.

These first two pictures show the back of the work.

These next photos are close ups of the front. I hope that you can see how punching the yarn from the back makes another layer. It is slightly raised.

I must admit to being very pleased with this discovery and I feel that I will be using this technique again to create different layers.

I don't know whether the photos really show what I am trying to explain, but if you look carefully you will see that the stitching does indeed disappear under the embellished outlines of the rock art drawings.

Well, back to work. BFN Tricia

Flower Pin Cushion challenge and work in progress.

These are the drawings I made for The Flower Pin Cushion Challenge from my Challenge site. The Challenge was to make a pin cushion with a stylised/geometric/art nouveau design to it. The first one above is of a Love in a Mist flower.

I then went on to make some studies of various other flowers, foxglove, penstemon and aquilegia. I became quite interested as always by the division of a circle, I found myself looking at the back of the aquilegia and noticed how the petals are divided. I then made a simple pencil drawing but the final design ended up to look much more like the water lilies on my pond, so I went along with that as it seemed to work very well. Not absolutely satisfied with the end result but I am quite pleased with the colour considering that I don't usually like working with bright pinks. Strangely enough I am more pleased with the green around the pink which I added a little silk to as I felted it.

Work in Progress.

Ok, as you can see I am back to my circles. I love geometry!

Being still quite new to the embellisher I am still experimenting with it to see it's possibilities. The piece of felt below was made by using up scraps of mainly brown felt, felted onto a wool blanket that I dyed a nice shade of pink. I then felted some chiffon headscarf material on to the back of this which was a combination of blues and golds and pinks. The beauty of working this way, I feel is that I make a piece of felt and then not only does the work from behind give the piece some nice unifying colours but also once cut into the shapes I want to use, I find that I can then use both sides which are slightly different but that compliment each other, as I hope you will see by the smaller pieces I have placed over this one, see below.

I hope that you can see the subtle change from the front and back. The back is the chiffon material and it is the smaller piece. I have done some machine embroidery onto this fabric and purely by accident in a way the rayon which was in the bobbin which was a shiny cream thread inspired me to embroider with some silvery thread around the outside of the top circle. The lower, larger circle is not so distinct and has a bronze shiny rayon machine stitching on it.

Here is a close up so that you can make out the differences between the two layers.

It is going to be very much a layered piece with the material alternating from back to front being used.

Another close up, this time of the petal features.

I haven't got all the petals motifs finished yet but you can see the idea of how it will look when it is finished

Well, I can honestly say I am now working in a manner that I am happy with. I feel that I need to make a series of these. So I hope to post some more and I will place the finished article here when done. B.F.N Tricia