Nuno Felt and Embroidery

I had a lovely few days off work last week. 

I love teaching families in the school holidays but just for a change I took a few days to chill out and catch up with stuff.

But I also had time to do some Nuno Felting and embroidery using some of the fabulous silk that I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last week.

Nuno Felt, for those who haven't come across it, is fine handmade felt that has silk or fine cotton embedded into it during the felting process.

The fine fabric allows the fibres to migrate through as the felt is agitated and allows the two fabrics to become one.

The fabric I had was a piece of fine recycled net, machine embroidered with pale purple flowers. It bonded easily with the fine grey felt.

It made a lovely starting point for the silk embroidery. Easy stitches that showed off the glow of the hand dyed threads.

I've added some hand beading to the centres of the flowers. These tiny glass neon beads give the embroidery such a burst of colour and I thought they'd make the perfect finishing touch.

What do you think?

Rejoicing in the little things

I love tiny things!

Sometimes the best things aren't big and showy, they are little and have to be searched for. I love looking for the littlest prettiest shell on the beach, spotting a tiny wild violet in the grass or finding the cutest button in a tray of bric a brac.

So when I found an old torn piece of doily that I had space dyed I thought it would be the perfect thing for making a page for my stitched Nature Blanket Book.

I found some gorgeous vintage velvet ribbon and placed it across the middle of both pages. I attached it with cross stitches on one side and feather stitches on the other side and then stitched on velvet flowers and little pink beads.

It is backed with a piece of old blue blanket. Such a lovely surface to stitch on!

On the left page I couched on a piece of wool roving with silk thread and added dyed felt leaves and weensy glass flowers. The bird was cut from felt with a Sizzix die and sewn on with detached buttonhole stitches. Her beak is needle felted on.

The right page is stitched with buttonhole stitches and straight stitches in variegated silk threads and the words done in back stitch.

I think the whole book will be a celebration of tiny beautiful things. Things to make us rejoice about the tiny pieces of nature all around us!

Back to my Arty Roots

I recently heard my much loved and first  textiles and embroidery tutor talking about my work and heard her say that she didn't think I did much hand stitching these days. Well I do have a needle in my hand most days, but what she meant was that I used to do work that was so stitched that the work was all about the stitching and the layers of texture and colour that it gave to the pieces.

Well, it made me yearn a bit for some of that stuff that I seem to be too busy to do these days. It made me abandon all the housework once again and I spent every spare moment of a whole week working on this!

It is based on the study of Lichen in the landscape; on branches and old walls. The textures and colours of moss and lichen, when you look closely at them, are so surprising and beautiful that I have been known to stop in my tracks and stare. Trying to absorb and remember them for capturing in stitch or in some arty adventure.

Below are some closer details that show the stitchery a bit more clearly. You can also see the colours of the gorgeous space dyed silk and wool threads and the hand dyed silk laps that give it even more dimension.

You can also see the stitches. There are just about 5 different stitches in this piece but when they are used with a variety of different thickness of thread and in all kinds of scale they are enough to give amazing texture.

My learners seem to be craving hand stitching more and more these days. I have had to alter some of my lesson plans to include whole sessions that are devoted to just learning and playing with stitch. Yay! Welcome back stitchery! I have missed you and will be doing more soon!