Embroidering texture with yarn and other threads

This is a sample of hand-couching that I have completed for my college class.  I have used various yarns including crochet cotton, eyelash yarn, plain double knitting, slub yarn and DMC embroidery cottons.  What is it?  It is the bark on a tree trunk; the Bristlecone Pine Tree has this appearance, so I made a sketch of the trunk and this is my interpretation in stitch.  It is very tactile (just has to be touched) which is one of the things that attracts me to textile arts.

Dyeing the Coral Reefd

This is my finished dye project.  The sea was pole-wrapped and dyed shibori-style; the reef components were drop-dyed with a few lines from fabric markers to define a few corals; the fish were made of vilene.  The dyes were cold water Procion dyes.  I very much enjoyed this project and left the border open (just a zigzag finish) because I wanted to show the vast openness of the sea.

Textures in Embroidery

If you look at this side-on view of these ducklings, you will see the fluffy texture, especially compared to the smooth poppies above.  The ducklings have been worked in Ghiordes knots, a stitch also known as Turkey Work, in which a loop is made followed by an anchoring back stitch.  These are worked closely across the area, and the loops cut open when finished.  They can be trimmed or left as they are

This close up of the poppies shows their smooth texture alongside the butterfly, which has both smooth satin stitch for the wings and Ghiordes knots for the body.

This embroidery was worked from an English book called Countryside Embroidery Book by Lalla Ward, now unfortunately out of print but sometimes available in public libraries.

Experiment with different stitches yourself - have fun!

Fabric Painting and Beyond

Since my last entry I have been having the time of my life, learning new techniques, working on a project for my Dyeing Unit - pix will appear when it's finished.  The photo I uploaded last time has a successor - after we talked in class about stitching into our fabric painting, I made another with my daisies more daisy-like by stitching on it.

Next week we start "Embellishment" - lots more fun - now I understand why people study textile arts.

Dyeing

I've just started studying Textile Arts at my local college (hence no recent entries, too busy) and one of the subjects is Dyeing.  This is one of my early efforts, I was rather pleased with it.  I plan to use dyeing lots more in the future in my work, I love the brightness of the colours.

Birds and embroidery

 This is a pic I drew of an owl to embroider.  So far I have done some of the feathers on the wing - it is brown (being a Boobook Owl, Australian) and I am working in cottons not silks and I have tried twice and can't keep up the interest!  If anyone wants to use this drawing and work it themselves, they are welcome - I doubt I'm going to finish it.  If anyone does copy it off, print it and enlarge it and work the design, I'd love to see the result, you can send a photo to my website email at christinespatterns@hotmail.com and I will publish it there.  For more bird embroidery patterns, my website address is christinelinton.com.au

If you go to the website below, you will find some interesting information on birds and birdwatching generally.  This is the British site.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/watchingbirds/

Embroidered Birds

http://birdsinbackyards.net/

Returning to my first love of birds (after a season of butterflies) I have found a great site to look at which you see above.  Birds Australia is a very interesting site, worth taking time to explore, and includes bird calls.  Look under the Birds tab at the top, then About Birds, leading to Bird Calls.
One of the calls is the Kookaburra.  My embroidered kookaburra is on the right - also can be seen as part of a wall hanging in the Gallery Page at www.christinelinton.com.au
I will look at the British site, Royal Society of Birds, next time.