What's in the background ? #the100dayproject

Have you wondered how these garden vignettes (#100gardenthreads) begin?

What's in the background to these creations?

It literally takes hours some days to audition fabrics for the piece. The technique I use involves small scraps of fabric, cut or torn and then stitched over. Each day, I look through my stash and try to find the right colour, perhaps a little texture, even a pattern for a particular leaf or flower.

Sometimes, I cannot find the right colour so I often hand colour with inks, dyes, and/or paint and quite often, with coloured pencils (Prismacolour).

That isn't really the beginning - I spend a lot of time in the garden looking carefully, cutting samples of leaves, branches, flower stems, and of course photographing the specimens. Indoors , I work from cuttings and photos and drawings because by the time I am ready to interpret a flower, it may not be still blooming in my garden. And of course, the birds and other creatures don't stay around while I stitch their images.

Day 42 is a good example of the background to a #100gardenthreads creation - eucalypt leaves.

Fortunately, they are in abundance all year around in the garden, so it is easy to bring a few inside to work directly from the and try to colour match a fabric. In this case, I chose recycled t -shirt material for the colour and texture, with a few leaves cut from silk screened and hand dyed fabrics and doilies to add the variety of tones. I also did some quick sketches for for composition and cut a few leaf templates to try them out for size. Then the free motion stitching - it is really the least creative part of the process. This is done on my trusty Bernina sewing machine #550, with feed dogs lowered, and all going well, it is the quickest part of the creation.

Materials : cotton fabric, recycled stretch fabric, doilies, thread, coloured pencils.

Techniques : free motion stitching, hand colouring, raw edge applique

Comments

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks .... The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or my husband or from off cuts gifted to us from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks. Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

From my workshop page....

Current Workshops Offerings Thinking of a workshop for your group in 2022? Art Doll Workshops : - Garden Thread Dolls (one day workshop - WoW -(Woman of Wisdom) - embellished stump doll with either cloth head or clay head. This is an a rt doll workshop .... either offered as a series of workshops or 2 full days days! - Message/Story Stick doll - doll made with found objects and upcycled cloth. ( one day) - Elemental totems - stick doll variation , with sculpture ( one or two days, depending on surface decoration of fabric) TEXTILE AND MIXED MEDIA WORKSHOPS Temari - embroidered wrapped balls in traditional style. - Dipping Into Tea - tea and embroidery on canvas with photo transfer on fabric. ( two days) work by Judith Bee, workshop participant. - Tea Bag sculpture : ...

"Temari Or Not Temari?" Tutorial

Background Information: Temari (literally translated “hand ball”) is a Japanese folk craft that is alleged to have originated in China and was introduced to Japan five or six hundred years ago. Traditionally, the balls were constructed from wrapped kimono fabric remnants and silk threads. They were made by mothers and grandmothers for children to play with. Nowadays, decorative embroidered temari represent a highly valued and cherished gift symbolizing friendship and loyalty. Recently I've wondered if your don't use traditional techniques whether you should call what you create "temari". That is an ongoing debate but today I share what I do to make a "non-traditional temari".... 1.I start with a polystrene ball ( traditionally the balls were wound silk scraps or other organic materials) and begin to wrap with approx 4 ply wool, turning the ball as I wrap. 2. I then wrap another layer of wool in a similar fashion , this time a 3 or 2 ...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Search This Blog