Cabinet of Curiosities and life changes

 It is hard to believe that the last time that I blogged was in March, but this last year has been so full of unexpected and unwelcome happenings that it is understandable.  I have not yet mentioned it here but August a year ago (2023) my husband and partner in all things suddenly collapsed and passed away. To say that it was a shock doesn't even begin to describe the total collapse of my world.  

Since my house is much too big for one person, my oldest two daughters sold their home and moved back in with me. We are still just getting things a bit more settled. Amazing how trying to fit two households into one house is a bit difficult. My living room looks like a jumble sale in progress.

 In April, my 102 year old mother fell and we brought her here to live with us. She ended up on hospice for nearly a month and passed away in May, and all of us got COVID just before her funeral. Since I was trustee of her estate, I was in charge of getting her house ready to sell. After two months of cleaning, repair and misdirected wire transfers, it finally sold. But as you can imagine, I now have some things from house number three here. 

As part of the upheaval of my life and not entirely willingly, but knowing it is necessary, I am in the middle of selling our family cabin and bringing some things from there to the house. So now we have bits of four different houses trying to jostle themselves into one house. It is still  a work in progress. Lots of stuff has been given away and donated and much more is on the way out. But it is just "stuff" and just not that important any more.

During this time I have still found time to stitch because it is the thing that feeds my soul and keeps me sane.

I have been slowly working on my needlework box (Cabinet of Curiosities) or Kathrin's Kist. I have just finished the last side of the upper slope section.  I decided that this part of the casket would feature animals.

This is one of the sides. I tried to add some fun threads and techniques. I love the way that the dog and bird are the same size. The edges are a bit messy but will be trimmed and covered with silver tape.

The second side section has two bunnies, a fun tulip and a curly lamb.

The back of the slope features a very funky lion, a camel and leopard. 
The animals of the original caskets were often drawn by people who had never seen any of the live animals so they are often not quite true to life or sometimes a total fantasy.

The front was so much fun to do. I decided to do the Unicorn from Scotland and the Red Dragon from Wales. They are both padded and couched with metal threads. The wing is a separate piece so it and the flowers are detached elements that add lots of texture.

Silver Butterflies

 I love metal thread embroidery and antique jewelry and this project combines both of those interests. For a number of years, I have had an idea to use antique Edwardian bar pins as the body of a butterfly. The pins that I bought for this project are base metal because I knew that in taking off the pin on the back, the pins would be destroyed as a piece of jewelry but reborn as part of a work of art. Each of the unique bar pins inspired the embroidery of the wings of that specific butterfly. A  couple of the pins have colored stones and so I used that color in the embroidery. I raided my stash to find every silver metal thread that I had, I didn't use all of them but it was fun to have so many to choose from. I started with a metallic organdy for the basic shape. The embroidery techniques vary but include a lot of couched metal threads with some of the areas padded to add texture. I also used beads and silver leather.

This one became a moth because the pin was a different shape and I love how it changed the whole feeling.

I added some colored threads and beads because of the aqua center stone for this one.

This one has a blue stone and shows the frame. I just used a simple black frame for all of them.

Assisi Embroidery

 This pattern is from Modern Folk Embroidery called Fancy an ABC. I brought it because I loved the look but decided that I was never going to stitch the whole design. So.....I picked  part of the design that runs down the right side and tweaked it just a bit and stitched it.

I used a 56 count Seraphim linen in the color Antique Lace which has a bit of a green tone. I stitched it with one strand of Soie Surfine thread.

The technique is called Assisi. You stitch the background and leave the design open so you can see the linen.

Even on that tiny of a linen it is still 3 1/2 by 10 7/8 inches.

I love the way that it turned out. I needed a piece that required just stitching and no decisions.

Parham Owl and Progress on Needlework Casket (Kist)

 I have just finished another piece from the fabulous Jenny Adin-Christie. Her designs are wonderful and so creative. This one is the Parham Owl. It is an etui that has a pin cushion, and thimble holder under the head and the wings are needle holders.

Here is it perching on a stump. I am trying to find a creative way to add some grass around it. I think I know what I want it to look like but we shall see. 

I finished the head first and then the wings. The threads are not the usual ones that we go to when we have a design to work on but really enhance the look of the parts of the owl.

I am back at work on my casket. I have finished the designs for the slope and parts of the body. I needed to get the work that I had finished off of the slate frames so I could use them for the next section. So I glued the paper to the embroidery and then to the casket. It really is a "leap of faith" experience to brush glue on the back of embroidered silk fabric, stick it to paper and then have to wait to see if you did it right.  Anyway, it is on the box now and makes me excited to add more embroidery.

Pink Robin and Magnolia

 

This embroidery from Inspirations Magazine (issue 109) is called Pretty in Pink. It features a lovely magnolia blossom and a pink breasted robin from Australia (petroica rodinogaster). Who knew a robin could have such a vivid pink breast.

It is done in a technique called silk or soft shading. This allows the colors to shade from one into another without a sharp line where the colors change. It is a bit difficult to do but when it works the effect is glorious. 

The first time I saw it in the magazine, it reminded me so much of my friend Lynn, so I stitched it for her.

Whole Bag - Daffodil and Pomegranate - Petal Bag

 It is finished!!!! 

I love it when a design comes together and turns out the way that I imagined it would. Of course, it is not perfect, but hand work never is.

Daffodil Panel

It was quite an adventure figuring out how to do the edge of the daffodil cup and make it look seamless.  The center of the pomegranate is filled with tiny garnet beads, so it glows because of the way that the light bounces through them. The butterfly is tiny, but I managed to get several colors of silk and silver thread into the wings.

After I finished with the stitching, I needed to lace the embroidery onto the plastic shapes. When both sides were finished, I whip stitched the two sides together. 

The final step to get the petals ready was to couch Grecian gold cord around the whole petal and hide the ends of the cord.

When all five of the sides were finished, I carefully sewed the sides together. Which was an exercise in stitching into tight places. I tried a curved needle but finally ended up with a size 12 sharp that had a little bend to it and was able to sew them securely.

By this time, I was so close to being finished that I didn't even take any more pictures. 

The bag for the center is formed from two circles of gold silk with eyelet holes in the casing for the draw strings, and a plastic pentagon between the two layers for the bottom.  The centered pentagon was sewn to the bottom of the bag on the inside.

Last, I covered a pentagon with white silk for the outside of the bottom and sewed it in place.

Rose and Pear - Petal Bag

 I like the way that the rose turned out on this panel. The rose has both padded and dimensional petals, and the pear is padded silk shading over 3 layers of felt.

As I was working on the different panels the next stage was to add things like pearls, acorn caps and blueberries over the embroidered flat or padded elements on the fabric. 

Next to be stitched was all of the detached petals, leaves and other parts. They needed to have the pattern traced on another piece of fabric. The wire was basted down and then I colored the wire and fabric with a Copic pen.  This was done so that when I cut it out, any of the fabric threads that I couldn't quite get cut off would disappear and if the wire was not completely covered it did not show.  I used various techniques to fill in the shapes. A few were padded with string but mostly they were just stitched and shaded.  After all of the stitching was done, I put a very thin layer of acid free glue on the back so that they were more stable when they were cut out.

The ends of the wire were either just inserted into the fabric or wrapped with silk to make a stem before they were put into place. The ends on the back were bent down, couched to the lining fabric and then trimmed off. At this point the flowers, leaves and other elements were carefully bent to the required shape. 

Finally, I added flower centers, any other small details and then the gold pearl purl and spangles to the panel. Time to celebrate, the embroidery was finished. The photos at the start of each of the posts are of the finished panels.

Now all of that work was done, I could start to put it together.  I picked a soft gold silk taffeta for the lining and the inside bag. The stiffening is a combination of 7 and 10mm quilt template plastic. I wanted something that was thin but rigid and would not get crushed. For most of my small, shaped boxes or houses, I use comic board or Skirtex® to create the shape. I could not do that with this piece since the petals flex a little and if board gets bent it will stay that way and mis-shaped petals would spoil the whole bag.