Photo Overload

I have been a busy bee finishing up these last 8 colorways. I ironed, wrapped and photographed tons of ribbons and fabric the last several days. I have uploaded all of the photos onto my flickr photostream except the last few I needed to reshoot. I will be slowly adding these to Etsy and Artfire as I can. I have a lot of specialty threads I will be including, among them slinky rayon chainette and raggedy silk satin bias. Also a bit of cotton lace. I will be glad when this is all done though and I can get back to my stitching. For some reason I am not in the mood to play with my dyes right now. I am much stronger though and full of energy. I almost feel like myself again. The hip still has not healed but I believe in time it will also recover. I have lost almost 25 pounds and if that doesn't help the healing I don't know what will!

Here is a quick shot of the Jacobean Bunny Project. It is slow going but fun. I am not so sure I will ever pick velvet to do this type of work on again. It is hard to do counted and precise work on such a fabric. I want to play on the linen!

A possible side trip

A friend recently commented, after viewing the drawing for my jacobean bunny piece that I should consider making pieces for RSA renaissance members. I absolutely adore blackwork and although I havent done any Jacobean work before I love every sort I have ever tried, and will probably pick up my needle tonight to try this one for the first time!

It is a very enticing idea and I am strongly considering doing just that. I realize that all of my work in the past has been on the more colorful and fantastical side but there is also a love of tiny precise stitches inside of me, I can see myself happily stitching away for hours working on such a piece.

For those of you who dont know me, I was actually a cross stitcher for many years, working on many large involved pieces. I even brought several of them with me to France to finish as seen above. I always wanted to make things that were used though, it's one of the reasons that many of the items I have made in the last year are bags, belts, brooches and scarves. There is only so much wall space in anyone's home but clothing accessories are worn as the fancy strikes. I also like designing my own items. Although I loved to paint the canvas with my stitches they were someone else's creation. I think that working on some period pieces would satisfy my love of tiny precise stitching and also my want of making things that are useful. After some study of the period patterns I even hope to design some of my own that are true to that era.

Color

And color has bloomed once again in my studio...

Jacobean Bunny

I have to admit, I've never done Jacobean Embroidery before but I like it a lot. I spent the last several days studying some of the stitches used in the technique and familiarizing myself with it.
I was unable to find a hoop quite big enough to avoid pressing the velvet in it so I wrapped and prepared my hood to make it less damaging. I then traced my design onto the velvet. I dont usually trace things when I work but the Jacobean images will be so heavy that I dont think there is any worry about lines showing through:


I then picked out a color palette to go with the fabric of the main portion of the body. The fabric I am using is the fabric in the background of this picture


I am now ready to start stitching!

Preparing For The Next Dye Batch