Introducing: Minature Embroideries

The necklaces! They're finally completed! They are up for sale at my new shop Sister Dee's This and That. So please go ahead and check them out. 

I attached the last couple hooks Saturday after we dug ourselves out of the snowstorm. Then I photographed and edited like crazy today. There are 4 brooches and 15 necklaces in total. The embroideries are 18 x13mm at the smallest and 18 x25mm at the largest. Probably the smallest I have ever embroidered. I also stuck with my trusty felt for backgrounds. All of the jewelry findings are made in the USA, specifically in New England by various artisans (you can find out more at fallenangelbrass.etsy.com). I liked the look of the antiqued black brass for my embroideries and loved that everything was made by small businesses as well.

200 Stitches: the Beginning

I was inspired by the blog the Big B to attempt to learn (or relearn) 200 stitches this year. I tend to use the same stitches over and over again and I need to stop that. I figured the best way to combat this is to crack open my stitch bible that I've had for about 5 years and go through it cover to cover. It's also a prime time to use up extra fabric in my stash and all of the left over embroidery floss I have kicking around.

First stitch was the "running stitch and variations". I need to break out the ruler since my eyesight is too poor and my apartment too dim to count threads in the fabric. Next up, the Holbein stitch! EMBROIDER FTW!

Already this exercise makes me want to finally dive into getting an embroidery hoop stand. Mainly so I can look like Madame de Pompadour in her lesser role as royal embroiderer.

Embroider Everything!

For most of the girls in the family I decided to try my hand at some pendants. I embroidered some designs on my trusty felt and then attached them to some pendant trays with a glass glaze. I'm writing this before I gifted these so hopefully they went over well. I'm thinking of making some more for the shop since I can never get enough of embroidery tiny things.

 

Squid A Month Club (October Cosmos)

And another Squid a Month Club squid. The description for this was "second career astronaut" and was the conclusion of this squid story.

Tina Kova is back from space and ready to share the marvels of the universe. All of her photographs are being posted via NASA's twitter feed but she has a whole new way to showcase her experience. She is at the opening exhibit of her space embroideries and is having a delightful time going into the specifics of space walking and needlepoint.

Squid A Month Club (October Anatomy)

One of the Squid a Months for October. The description I had to go on was "anatomy"

Erin has been preparing for her latest school report all week. She just put the finishing touches on her skeleton suit and is now practicing her report in front of the mirror. She's pretty confident on explaining blood flow without her notes but she still needs to work on being able to identify all of the veins in her illustration.

GeeGee's Needlework

 This piece hung in my grandmother's farmhouse when I was a little girl. My gram passed away when I was in elementary school and thankfully my mom loved this as much as I did and made sure to take it. It has hung in the entryway of our house ever since. I'm pretty certain that my gram's mother made this. We called her Gee Gee and I have a few things that she made. Most notably an apron that my mother wore when she was a toddler in the 1940's. I'm not really sure when this embroidery was made but my guess is the 50's, perhaps the 60's. Gee Gee also died when I was pretty young so my only memory of her is a Muppet Baby version of Nanny. I remember being at her old and creaky home watching TV on the floor with my brother and having a pair of orthopedic shoes in thick stockings serve us Hydrox cookies and milk on a tray. I always thought the tray was a nice touch. I also remember her funeral being the day I found out that my family has a tradition of kissing the person in the coffin goodbye so my second memory is my mom guiding me towards an open coffin and telling me to give Gee Gee a kiss on the cheek.
I really wish I would have known her better than this because the stories I heard about her later where all tales of her being quite the prankster. When she worked at the local sewing factory she stuck a pair of mannequin legs in a vent and then hid nearby. Whenever someone walked by she would yell for help. My favorite photo is one where she decided to practice the layout for her funeral. It has an 80-something year old woman flat on her back in the grass holding a lilly with her eyes closed and a slight smirk. She really knew how to commit.
And with that we're back to the embroidery. My mom said it was loosely based on their daily life at the farm. She always had the chore of feeding the chickens. They had a lot of chickens and they enjoyed pecking her legs so she was not a fan of them. The only other person she ever pointed out was that my aunt was possibly the girl feeding the ducks (and thus once again getting away with not doing any of her own chores). I always assumed my grandpa as the wagon driver with one of his many trusty dogs following behind. The last dog my grandpa had was a gray toy poodle named FiFi. FiFi would ride with my grandpa on the tractor while he plowed the fields and looked after the horses and the sheep. He also took FiFi to the groomer's once a week for a wash and color-coordinating nails and bow. FiFi was also a boy. I was used to most farmers I knew having little dogs they took along with them during their work but none were like FiFi. I also assume that my grandmother is by the house in the upper left hanging out the wash. An uncle (the twin to my mom) is fishing. My other uncle (twin to my aunt) is loading up the apple cart. And I'm totally lost as to who the other man in the orchard would be but I'm guessing it would be my grandpa's father who was the previous owner of the farm.

I never really attempted embroidery until I was in college and did an independent study course in Fibers one semester and taught myself. I hadn't thought about this piece in ages but quickly realized that it was a pretty big influence on me and my obsession with having large scenes that you can dive into and find intimate details. Embroidery also tapped into my love of neo-impressionists and of course, pointillism. I still remember having my little mind blown in second grade when we had a class on the paintings of Seurat. I couldn't wait to have my turn to look at the print up close. It was fascinating going near and far to see when was the precise moment that the splotches started to work together to convey a recognizable image.
When I returned from college after my first attempts of embroidery I had a whole new appreciation for this piece. I love that she rarely used anything but a straight stitch to convey shapes which I find I do as well now. I know so many stitches but I really love just sticking to simple dashes, satin stitching and of course the lovely colonial knot. Sometimes I'll work in a fancy stitch and then pull it all out because I find it distracting. It's also great to see how few stitches she used to convey something that you can instantly recognize (like the ducks and the crows.) I really enjoy how she used white to pull everything together. I think these objects could easily look like blobs if it wasn't for that.

Every time I walk into my dad's house this is the first thing I see and I am so happy it survived to be passed down along with plenty of tales of GeeGee.

note: all of these photos are pretty big so you can click on them and zoom in. You can also find some more shots here. I had to take all of these shots with the embroidery still under glass so sorry about some of the glare. Speaking of this still being under glass- the back of this is just as fantastic as the front. I love all of the bits and pieces she used in the framing.

Thursday's Accessory

These were made to hold mac and cheese and mashed potatoes.

Busy Bee

This bee is part of a larger onesie but sadly I can't find the other pictures for it.  

Microscopic

A good while ago I participated in an art show in the southside that the Steel City Art Collective put on.  It's taken awhile to post these photos because of camera problems but here you go.  This also means that it's for sale!  Check it out at the shop. 

The theme of the show was "something from nothing" which put me in mind of seeing things microscopically and the little worlds that go on around us every day.  I'm always amazed at all of the tiny components that make up larger objects.  Just like Bjork.   I spent some time researching different images of items that would make good embroideries.  Most of them are pretty true to life but I did tweak some of the colors and such.  You know, cause I'm an artist.

I started off by sketching everything out on paper and making notes on colors and such because 1. It never really occurs to me to use colored pencils and 2. I don't think I'd use them anyway.  I'm used to doing embroideries so for me everything starts out being sketched in a way I know will work for thread with the knowledge that I only have a limited amount of colors to work with.  I probably have about 80% of all of the colors of floss so I just crack open my thread boxes and take a look. I also like to crack open my thread boxes when I'm stressed and organize them.  Sometimes I go ROY G BIV and sometimes I try to make fun gradations.  I also like to write down all of the colors I have so I know what I'll need in the future.  I lead a wild life.

After this I used tracing paper to transfer everything onto fabric.  This normally works pretty well and if some of the chalk doesn't stay on I just trace over it with pencil before it fades.  The designs were too small and intricate (they're all in 1" squares although some are much smaller) for this so I just got to work as fast as I could.  A few faded before I was done so I free-handed (free-embroidered?) the last few.  All but one of the images was done with one strand of embroidery floss.  The closeup of #9 at the bottom involved 2 and 3 strands of the various shades of orange.

After I was done I numbered all of them. At the show I printed out lists so you could take a stab at guessing what each one was and refer to the cheat sheet as needed.

As you can see I made two of these hoops. Here's a little closeup.  You can check out more closeups at the shop. The answer keys are included with the hoops.

catch up

I hurt my shoulder sewing a large pile of squidtivity faces and backs so I decided to play catch up on other work.  Essential work such as embroidery organization and finally making various sizes of produce and bulk bags.   The main thing has been trying to figure out our new and much more complex camera. Our old one was dying.  Whites were gray and blacks and any dark colors would blend into dark backgrounds. These two problems made the squid photos pretty worthless.  The learning curve is steep but hey, at least my cat finally shows up in photos again.

Secret Projects

One reason this is taking so long: one strand of embroidery floss.

I feel like a lot of items I make I never get to show until months later since they're waiting for customers.  This little peek will (hopefully) be finished and ready to show by the end of next week.  I'm still a little worried about getting everything done for it especially when it's combined with everything else that has a strict deadline this Spring. The main event is prepping for INDIEanna Handicraft Exchange which needs to be 100% completed before the 1st of June when I then get to help my best friend move here from Seattle (yay!) and possibly another time-consuming event of our own for that week.  It's going to be a busy May and June but July will be awesome. A nice and quiet awesome, which really is the best kind.  And hopefully not rainy, although it has been really beautiful with all of the trees losing their blossoms. 

Best Thing I've Seen All Week

It was a toss-up between this fantastically done embroidery (and man, how can you not love the subject!) and this:


Apache from oneedo on Vimeo.