Sanibel and embroidery

Here is the embroidery that I have been working on for quite a while. The rectangle is one page of the multi-page pattern. I figure that it is at least a 5 year project. This is one piece that the aim is to enjoy the process instead of looking for the end. As I finish significant sections I will post them.

The first week of September I went to Florida to teach at the national seminar of the Embroiderers' Guild of America. This year the seminar was in Naples Florida. I have been on the Atlantic coast but never on the Gulf coast before. This the view from the hotel room looking at the gulf.

We went to Sanibel and Captiva Islands and walked along the beach and looked at shells. Most of them were small but I have never seen so many intact shells. Usually the shells on the beaches where I have been broken. Because of a key locked in the trunk, we spent a few extra hours there but I did find some beautiful flowers on the edge of the beach.

We have just come back from the most amazing trip. My husband has always wanted to go back to New Zealand and I have always wanted to go there.... so we finally did it. The long plane ride was not too much fun but well worth it. We started in Christchurch on the south island and ended in Auckland which is on the north island. We were greeted the first night by a small earthquake but were so tired we just went to sleep anyway. We sort of zig zagged our way up the country. It is fall in New Zealand but it is still so green. I am used to the world turning shades of brown in autumn. This is picture of flowers on a beach and the next one is of the garden around a place that we stayed in Waitamo. This plant was so amazing - it is at least 2 feet across but I loved the great graphic image.

This is what we came home to.. the snow always seems to get my crocuses. ....Poor things sticking up out of the snow.

I am working on a new design and took it with me to work on. I ought to be able to get something done is three weeks, or at least that was the plan. I did get a bit done and here is the progress.

It has been a busy January and February this year. I have made progress on Faith, Hope and Charity. I decided that rather than move the linen to work on the top of the figure, I would do some of the background around the feet. Here is how it looks so far. I find it soothing to just stitch with out a deadline.

For much of my work the stitching is the third part of a process. First is the idea, then comes the design work, the stitching is next and then the hard work of writing the instructions for the pieces. Sometimes one of the hardest parts of designing is thinking up the title. This year for some reason as I thought of the design the title came with it. Here is part of one of them. I love to see how the thought turns into a stitched piece. There are always some surprises along the way.

The last year has been an adventure to say the least. Some things went very well but others not so good. I found that someone that I thought was a friend was willing to betray me in a very ugly way, but that others gave me support when I needed it most. What is the phrase "Things that don't kill you make you stronger"? The year came to a close with something that on that day was the last thing that I needed but now it is funny. Here is the Christmas tree - good thing that the table was next to it.

I finished the piece that I was working on in the last post and here it is. I find that people can't resist touching it. The butterfly and some of the leaves are wired and stitched so that they are dimensional.

I am working on a long term project that is one of what I call my insanity pieces. They are things that as you are doing them, you wonder why you thought that starting them was a good idea. They usually take several years to complete but are worth it in the end. This embroidery is by James Christensen, one of my favorite artists. It is called Faith, Hope and Charity and has 32 stitches per inch. I will try to post updates on my progress.

Here is the original painting and here is how I am progressing. .

Bugs and Butterfly

When we travel, the souvenirs that I usually bring home are pieces of jewelry. I wear a lot of silver so it doesn't have to cost a bunch but I decided when I was about 16 that if it was not real I was not going to wear it. I have softened my position a bit because large diamonds and rubies are not in the budget and because of a book that I read. It is called Utopia by Thomas Moore. In it the Utopians value things a bit differently. If something is beautiful, the materials that it is made of are of secondary value to the craftsmanship of the object. Tiffany art glass is a perfect example of this. The value of Favrile is in the wonderful surface and shape of the glass.

Anyway, all of this rambling is actually going somewhere. When we were in Arizona last month, we found the most fantastic jewelry in the shop in Mesa, AZ. The jeweler's name is Matt Muralt and he creates the most wonderful, magnificent art jewelry in glass, gold and precious stones. I had him make a pendant of green glass and gold in the shape of a scarab. It glows like it has a light behind the glass. Here are a couple of his other creations. The wings on the jeweled scarab move. The Luna moth is divine and could be compared to the best of the Art Nouveau work.

I am also working on a fun piece of embroidery. It is titled Metamorphosis and will have many of the stages of the Monarch butterfly. I have finished the surface work and am working on the detached elements now.

Ebony and Ivory

I have been stitching a lot for the past few weeks. The first weeks of the new year are crunch time if an embroidery teacher wants to submit proposals to teach at the next EGA National seminar. The new pieces need to be finished along with the paper work. I really should have finished stitching them long before now but with 10 people in the house, life never follows a smooth path.

It has been a fun creative time for me with a couple of new designs for both retail and teaching.

The creative process is always an interesting one and when I start I never quite know exactly how it is going the look when it is finished.

Now comes the hard part.....doing the paper work for the submissions and then writing the directions.

I can't show you the whole designs but here are a few sections. One of the designs is stitched in both blackwork and pulled thread (which is a tone on tone embroidery, usually white on white).

The other is cross stitch but finished as small accessories.

From an idea to an embroidery

It is an interesting feeling to create some thing and see it through to the finished project. Ideas come from so many random places that although there is usually one thing that starts the creative process, you never know what the end is going to be. Often I get an idea and it stays in my head for a while doing what I call kind of wandering around. Then one day it gets the chance to pop out and gets put down in concrete form in a design. I never know how the idea is going to change between the fist thought and the final form. They rarely look anything like the original thing that I saw that started the whole process.

Sometime the oddest things are the genesis of a design. One pattern was created to fit a frame that I found and another started because I bought some yellow glass-headed pins.

I have been stitching on a new piece and it is finished. The few that I have shown it to seem to really like it so hopefully others will also. Here is a part of it, Ican't put the whole embroidery on since it isn't ready for sale yet.