Winter Greys

Having had a very busy few weeks with Christmas orders, which is always great, I have spent a few days chilling out, reading and just sitting back.  I can only do that for so long so I started drawing the trees that look so imposing in the wood to the back of our little house.  The hues and changing tones of greys and blacks are just lovely this time of year.  I had all these pencil and charcoal drawings of overlapping and intertwining branches and I decided to change my perspective and got a metal rular and a scalpel and chopped the drawings into 5cm square mini drawings.  I then, with no reference to my original source selected one mini drawing and made a small hand and machine embroidery taken directly from the reduced image. I find the randomness of the finished embroidery and the small sample drawing rather endearing.  It relies on simply differing texture and strong line.  I painted gouache in greys and blacks onto some quaker cloth and then began to work randomly with the machine reflecting the texture in the drawing.  I made some 'machine made cord' for the strong vertical, I enjoy making them and they always add a sense of dimension when used in any work. I hand couched them on to the piece and then worked other hand stitches into the machine stitch, mainly fly stitch. I also used some wool thread I had dyed using alkanet.  This gives you a wonderful grey to black range nothing like any commercially bought thread. I really enjoyed making the embroidery, such a change from what I had done lately and I feel it really reflects some of the winter grey days we have been having here in Lancashire.  I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and hope that it is a peaceful and successful New Year for everyone.  Best wishes.

Ida, a doll in navy blue and rabbit

This is Ida, she is little girl, she stands twelve inches tall and is made from tea dyed calico to my own pattern.  Her face is hand painted with acrylic and pencil crayon and then embroidered eye brows and eye lashes are stitched.  Her hair is made of soft fawn wool tops which is hand stitched and styled.  She has a wistful face, with one eye brow slightly raised as if she has just remembered something sweet and funny.  Her checkered legs and the heart she holds are made from a lovely fabric by fairtradefabric.co.uk, always well worth a look for plains, stripes and checks.  All cotton and all fair trade sourced. I bought the fabric for her dress at the Quilting Show at the NEC from a Japanese lady, all her fabrics were japanese and were quite, quite different in weight, style and weave from regular cotton lawns you see in the UK.  I particularly like the rabbits.  Her knickers and underskirt were made from my Uncle Jim's recycled walking shirt.  It's a really robust fabric, wonderful to work with and brings a handsome texture to her undergarments, I would have liked another metre of the fabric or an extra shirt it was so good to work.  But hey ho, you work with what you've got.  I hope you like her, she has real character and would make a lovely companion.

 

 

 

Esther, a tubby little rag doll for grown ups

This is Esther, she is a lovely tubby lady who stands 14 inches tall and who uses the last of my V&A fabric and the last of Aunty Irene's blouse!  She has a hand painted face and hand embroidered details and I love her blue hair, which is hand stitched and styled wool tops.  I am finding these tubby ladies very popular and thoroughly enjoy making them, from their curly hair to their little leather shoes.  I think they offer something other than pencil slim  and that is welcome. A little round lady ousing hearth and home.  I hope that all my girls are warm and companiable and that they bring a smile to your face.

Maud, a rag doll for grown ups

Maud is a tall girl, she is 16 inches tall and is dressed in new fabric from the V&A collection and from a blouse belonging to my Aunty Irene!  She carries a little heart and as always has little leather shoes.  I tried something different with her hair, she has plaits and a little head scarf, it gives her a country girl look.  I like the idea of a rag doll for grown ups, I mean that is what they are, but I had never thought to put so succinctly. I very happily sold my first doll on Folksy and that is how the lady who bought her, described her.  So here is Maud, a rag doll for grown ups.    

New Stitches Sampler

Having made the new little russian dolls and using different stitches I have been trying to think of different ways to make a sampler.  This was one solution I have found.  I sponge printed little blocks of colour onto quaker cloth and then using tonal threads I tried out some stitches that I wouldn't normally use on a sampler. Some of the stitches I tried included Velvet Stitch, Bullion Knots, Picots and Buttonhole Bars.  I particularly liked the Buttonhole Bars and the Brick Stitch, all the stitches could be used in many ways and thinking about how to use them is a challenge. I want to use more stitches in my work, I want to use the interesting textures that they make in a creative way. I don't think a sampler has to be just a band sampler or a victorian style sampler I think it can be different and I would like to find new ways to do this.   

Velvet Stitch

Bullion Knots

    

Buttonhole Bars

Woven Picots

Big and Little Pink Matryoshka Cloth Dolls

I've been working on my russian matryoshka style dolls and have made variations on a theme.  To the left the first picture shows the size variation and I think they look well together. The big girl, she is twelve inches tall and is soft to touch, the little girl is eight inches tall and stuffs a little firmer. On the smaller girls I have tried to slim down the profile to again give a little individuality.  The face scaled up well and I have included details of all their faces in this post.  Having varied scale, I varied detailing to the body and tried different way of using the ribbon to delineate the hood fabric.  Two of the doll have a contrasting bird with hand embroidery and one has a heart with hand embroidery. I particularly like the potential for embellishment that these dolls have.  I have also enjoyed using felt as a different texture, its ease of use make it a very satisfying fabric and it lends itself so well to hand embroidery.  I kind of feel I have got something here worth investigating, feedback so far has been very positive and they are a delight to make. I get to use all my favourite elements, buttons, ribbon and very pretty fabrics!  I hope you enjoy them and would love to hear any comments that you have. 

 

Rendezvous Goldsmiths, a really grand day out in Wales.

Ruthin Craft Centre is a little gem nestling in the town of Ruthin in North Wales.  We are lucky it takes us only an hour and half to get there, we always have a pleasant lunch at their tea rooms and over the years we have seen some remarkable exhibitions. The Rendezvous Goldsmiths exhibition is very good.  The exhibition contains work by former students and staff who were all involved with the college from 1975 to 1988, when Audrey Walker was head of department.  The collection of works is as diverse and different as the artists who created them.  If you can get to North Wales it is well worth the effort as there is something for everyone who has an interest in textile art.  The pieces by Audrey Walker herself are stunning and it is good to see some of her drawings as well.  There is some splendid work by the mosaic artist Cleo Mussi and a dazzling piece by Michael Brennand-Wood (see below).  The subtlety of the pieces by James Hunting are really worth seeing, the delicacy of the stitching to suggest human heads is great.  It took us about an hour and half to go round and get a good insight into the exhibition, there is also an interesting ceramic gallery showing Illustrated Ceramics, a collaboration of contemporary illustration work on modern ceramic pieces, which is also very good.  All in all it really is a special collection of work by very talented people who came together at an extraordinary period in Goldsmiths' history. 



 

Diana Mott-Thornton

No Thought Therefore No Fear 2013



 Michael Brennand-Wood

       Dream No8 The Seeker 2013

 

Audrey Walker  Expulsion 2006 

James Hunting

And There Will Your Heart Be Also

Little Blue Cloth Matryoshka

I have been asked to make a series of small cloth Russian dolls for a wedding in February next year and having never made one I thought I would try my hand.  There are lots of lovely examples on the internet and having got some inspiration I set about making my own.  Her face was the most important thing, everything else is just ornament but a doll's face is how she greets the world, you look at her face before anything else.  I wanted a young face and I wanted to use my favourite technique of having painted faces but embroidered eyelashes and brows.  I think I have nailed her eyes, they really work for me but I will play around with her mouth.  Next came the hair, I always like wool tops for the hair and I had several wild attempts at making this work but I am happy that this technique is workable and looks very dapper.  I like the body shape, this is mine and pleasingly plump but I was inpired to make the detailing of the lovely ribbon and felt by several dolls on the internet.  They must be done by one person but I cannot find out who(update, thanks to Miss Misty, the ladies names are Caroline from Zouzou Designs and Denise Ferragamo).  I like the idea of using ribbon and more personalised embroidery alongside the felt making them truly mine.  All in all I am quite pleased with her, she is a little large for my wedding dolls, she stands 8 inches tall but I have had some very promising reactions to her, including offers to buy her so I think I will make more.  I am going to make larger ones as companions and work on my wedding commission to make smaller ones around 5 inches, as well as making ones this size.  I think I would like to include some of my sampler stitched pieces with felt on her tummy that link around her body design. I have also thought about making cat ones, rabbit ones and frog one but we shall see.  I don't get as much time as I would like to play with new design ideas but really enjoy it when I get the opportunity.

Cossinia's Doll

This is Cossinia's doll, she is a jointed ivory doll from the first or second century AD or CE.  The doll is anatomically correct, about twelve inches tall and has a gold necklace, gold bracelets and anklets.  She even has the hairstyle sported by the empress Julia Domina shown in the photograph below. The photograph of the doll was taken by Barbara McManus of the VRoma Project
and having ferreted around I found out a little about Cossinia herself.  Cossinia, the daughter of Lucius, was a Vestal Virgin for sixty six years and was buried at Tivoli, the doll was found in Cossinia's tomb resting against her cheek and her shoulder, a very precious possession. Sadly the doll was removed  from Cossinia's tomb, before being taken to Rome, Cossinia's tomb being resealed. 

Girls coming of age dedicated their dolls to Diana, the goddess most concerned with young girls and their girlhood, or the doll would be dedicated to Venus if the young woman was contemplating marriage.  In Cossinia's case she kept her doll as a sign of her chastity and innocence.  It is said that she could have retired from her calling as Vestal Virgin after thirty years but she earned the love and respect of the people by choosing to stay in office and remain in the seclusion of the order.  I think this doll is just wonderful and would love to have seen her dressed in her Roman finery, the detail is great.  Such a precious object would surely have had silk tunics and stola to finish her off.  It is interesting that she is a fully adult woman and not a baby doll or a little girl.  Other Roman dolls have been found that are made from clay or wood as well as bone and ivory but nearly all seem to be of adult women.  I wonder if dolls for younger girls were made of fabric, softer and less likely to break.  A rag doll made within the confines of the home being fabric would probably not have survived the passage of time but it is interesting to have a glimpse of a treasured doll owned by a woman living so long ago.

Goldwork Acorns

There are so many acorns this year, and berries, hips and haws, I thought I would share my attempt at goldwork, three little goldwork acorns.  I love the shape of acorns and oak leaves, they lend themselves to embroidery.  My goldwork experiment was heavily influenced by Tracy A Franklin, she is a lovely person who offers courses at her studio in Durham but who also writes books.  Her book,  'New Ideas in Goldwork', is a great source of traditional techniques used in a modern fashion.  I had trouble buying the sundries for this little project and found that the Golden Hinde in Warrington has a good selection of materials for the beginner, they will sell small quantities of thread, purl and leather and offer an excellent mail order service.  For my acorns I used a selection of 'purls', these are threads spun with gilt metal around them and come in various forms.  You never pierce the cloth with these threads they are all couched down to get the layering effect.  The leather, in this instance kid leather, comes in tiny quantities and you use felt or bump to pad the shape before stitching down.  Once laid down, the edges of the leather are edged with purl as are all the other shapes to give a neat edge.  There are lots of different ways of laying purl and different ways of working the leather but everything is on the surface, the one thing that struck more than any other is the weight of the work.  This piece is tiny, around six inches by four inches yet there is real weight to it, it makes you wonder just how heavy a full ceremonial cope must weigh with all the goldwork there.

 

Buttons

I've been playing today with some brass rings and some fabric covered buttons.  I had two sizes of ring and made a few different buttons.  I started with Dorset Buttons, they are the wheel button on the extreme left of the picture, basically you cover the brass ring using buttonhole stitch and then make threads running across the ring to make a wheel and then weave the thread under and around the spindles of the wheel to complete the button. In all these buttons when covering a brass ring in buttonhole stitch make sure that you have enough thread to completely cover the ring.  The little bouquets are made by over sewing the brass ring with buttonhole stitch and then using a flower thread or similar to make flower stems that move across the ring, using the top set of flower stems stitch french knots and use beads to make the flowers of the bouquet.  Finishing with a little bow, that I secured using a tiny blob of PVA.  I think they would make very pretty little brooches. The other buttons below, are again using a brass ring and buttonhole stitch, insert a tiny piece of hand made felt that is embellished using a felting needle and tiny wisps of felt.  Still a definite technophobe I decided to try putting a piece of inkjet printing silk through my printer having first taken pictures of a pile of buttons, I liked the idea of a button covered button.  I recommend the Inkjet Silk by Jacquard as being very easy to use and gives great results.

 

 

Cecily

This is Cecily, she is one of my tubby girls and stands 14 inches tall.  She is dressed in a mixture of ginger and green and has ticking legs and a ticking bird.  I think the fabrics sit well together, I am not sure of their origin as I have had them forever but the ticking was bought in to back several patchwork cushions.  I love her green hair and eyebrows, I am really starting to like the alternate hair colours they make the dolls seem more like an illustration and more fun.  The face, as always is hand painted and the eyelashes and eyebrows embroidered. Her hair is apple green merino wool tops.  She is a very calm girl and has a gentle, wistful face.