Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Vintage Tie One On


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I don't have any vintage aprons, but I came across this photo the other day. Its me, helping in the garden, wearing my pinny. Its dated 1951, so I was about two and a half. I would guess that this apron was made for me by my mother, probably recycled from some other garment.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Come into my parlour, said the spider....

I can't help it - I keep going back to bugs!!

The inspirations for this panel were old, peeling Russian icons, spiders webs and an Egyptian necklace of gold flies.

In the panel, the flies are caught in the spiders web, in various stages of distress. One is newly caught, one has given up the fight and one is completely wrapped in silk.


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The picture frame is made of calico, with knotted and torn strips machine applied and heavily stitched. This was first given a watercolour dye wash in shades of dark blue, grey and purple. Then it was painted with gold metallic powder in fabric medium. The edges were burnt in a candle flame to give an old, distressed effect.

Here is a close up of the panel.


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The background fabric is a piece of distressed velvet. On top of that is a piece of hand made silk paper, lightly coloured with silk paints and embellished with scraps of coloured silk in shades of red and gold and a piece of netting from a bag of supermarket oranges, all applied with free machine stitching in rayon and metallic threads. The first fly was built up onto the background with free machine stitching in red rayon thread over gold painted fabric. The second fly was made from a piece of gold painted calico and a scrap of fur fabric. The eyes were padded metallic fabric, divided with a piece of metallic thread, laced over a piece of card. The third fly has painted calico wings embellished with free machine embroidery and the body is covered with gold glass beads. The spider body is padded velvet laced over a piece of card, embellished with metallic thread and the legs are fancy cord finished with a bead.

Its a kind of experimental stumpwork!

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Bees Knees! 2

Here is another, heavier, darker version of the cutwork bee.


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And here is a closeup.

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Yeast

This post is for Beche La Mer. Take a look at her amazing moonrock over at Two Cents, here's the link:

http://beche-la-mer.blogspot.com/2005/12/moon-rock-6.html

It reminded me of an interpretation of yeast under a microscope I did some time ago. The inspiration came from an illustration in an old copy of New Scientist Magazine.


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Here's a closeup, so you can see the stitching.


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And here is another, much simpler, version in handmade paper, wool roving and stuff. (Sorry about the background, can't think what possessed me!)



And back to the 'space' theme, here's some little straight stitch samples I did. The inspiration, once again, illustrations from New Scientist Magazine.


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Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Bees knees!


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This is a picture of a bee that I recently posted to Illustration Friday.
And below is the piece of textile work that it inspired.


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Layered polyester sheers on synthetic felt. The main design lines were machine stitched in Madeira metallic machine embroidery thread with a cotton core, the cotton core is important because it doesn't melt. The cut-out shapes were done with a soldering iron with a very fine point, cutting through some, or all of the layers. The markings on the body were made by cutting through some of the layers with the tip of the soldering iron, leaving the fabric below showing through.