More Algerian Eye Stitch and some Arrowhead stitch

Yet another section of my sampler. The diamond shapes in the middle are filled with Eylet stitches turned to stand on a tip. I always stitched into every hole. For the big shape and the small shape surrounded with running stitches I used 4 strands of stranded cotton. In the small shapes on both sides I used one strand for the same stitch. The non-pulled variant surrounded by running stitches is the classical canvas eylet stitch.

The eylet patterns should be easy enoug to figure out, if not just ask. the middle row of the one in the upper left corner was done using valdani sewing thread matched to the pearl cotton.

The three arrowhead section show that this stitch did not exactly inspire me when I started using it. We will see later how that changed. the patcch in the lower right corner is a good example why it is also called knitting stitch.

This time you can click the image to enlarge it.

My Blog and Me

My ISP has problems again, so another posting without pics. I know this is getting old.

The important news first: Sharon Bogon has moved her blog, it is now at www.pintangle.com . If you happen not to know it, it’s one of the most useful fiber art blogs and a great community hub, check it out. She has moved all her content over already, and is going to wipe out her old blog soon, so do change your bookmarks and such. But I guess many of you knew that before me.

In her first real post over there, she is describing her progress with moving and cleaning up everything, and muses a bit about her blog and blogging. This made me think about my blogging habits. It is fun again since my blogging break, but sometimes I ask myself if it is useful for anyone but me. One of the good things is that it pushes me to create things when I’m too lazy to do this on my own, because I always find that I feel better when i express myself in someway. On the other hand, I have to be careful that I don’t fall in the other extreme and create meaningless things just for the sake of blogging. But why else do I blog? I enjoy writing, I want to give the inet community something back after I learned so much from other blogs and websites, and I like to interact with other fiber folks that way. And yes, I do enjoy the attention and praise I get out of it. Somtimes I think I’m rather pathetic for that last reason.

Sharon writes that the focus of her blog has narrowed down over the years, got more strictly on topic. For mine, the contrary is true. When I opened it it’s sole purpose was to give me a place to post my stuff for Sharon’s take a stitch tuesday challenge in order to take part properly. But as I got used to blogging, I started sharing whatever remotely creative thing I happened to do. I meandered from stitching to knitting to painting to photography and back again, and it got even worse when I gave up on the take it further challenge due to time constraints. Sometimes I fear my readers will be taken aback by this, but I have no tome to make things up just for the blog and I don’t want to impose limits on what I do because my readers could consider this or that off topic.

These days I often ask myself in what direction I should go with my blog. Be more considerate of the wants of my readers, give them something that is useful, consistent and on topic (as far as I can)? Or continue as I do now, using this as a kind of journal, featuring whatever I happen to work on, including photographs I really like, and throwing in the occasional tutorial when I feel like it?

Sharon writes that she blogs more intensly when she feels she is tireing of it, because this will give her more feedback and bring the fun back to it. I guess that is what I need right now. Something new. Now my idea was to write a review once a week, about a book, a kind of thread or other raw material, anything that is about fiber art in any way. That would give me easy postings because I could prepare them a few at a time on weekends. Would you like that? Or is that a bad idea, since amazon is full of reviews?

What do you like about my blog, what not? Is there something I really need to change dear readers? Why do you blog the way you do?

Finding Beauty

I love fall, strange as it seems. These days I seem to see beauty everywhere. These shots where taken during some lunch break about three weeks ago, now I finally found time to sort them and shrink some for my blog.

More Algerian Eye Stitch

Here is another piece of my sampler. The lilac band has smyrna stitches alternating whith the eye stitches. The aalgerian eye fillings are round eylet stitches with slightly diffenent other eyelets for filling the spaces in between. The diamond shapes are surrounded with running stitches and filled with one very big eyelet each.

Jet another melting experiment

It’s weekend, and I’ve been at it again. I stitched onto jute scrim using manmade materials, heatgunned it and sandwiched it between more or less translucent fabric, this time lightwight grey lutradur. I’m sorry the pixs are not what they should be, the blue wool is in fact turquoise, and a bit on the greenish side. My scanner hates all shades of cyan, and there wasn’t sufficient daylight for photographs by the time I was done.

I have to say for the first time that I like the sample before the process more than after. Firstly, I had problems with my cheap heat gun, it didn’t get hot enough on the first setting, so I had to use the scond which means 500 °C, and that burned the jute a bit. Also, the grey yarn didn’t melt well. Also, Lutradur doesn’t seem to be the material of joice for such things, not translucent enough and too uneven.

Before heatgunning:

After heatgunning; the grey did not turn that yellow, no idea what my scanner is doing there. I liked that scanner much better before I had a digital camera and saw what this one can do in good light.

after layering; In reality, it looks much more blurred and opaque than this because the scanner will see through the fibers, while in real they will reflect a lot of light blurring everything.

Tip:
In order to trap such bulky things properly betrween thin fabrics, I put a layer of fusible web on each thin fabric piece, trap the jute in between, then pack it between two sheets of baking paper. Then, I first iron the whole package on a soft cushion, from both sides. That makes the ends stick together well. Then I iron it again on a hard surface to make sure it sticks well to the bulky stuff, again from both sides. Then I let the whole sndwich cool down completely before pulling off the baking paper, because if some fusible web spills through the fabric it will adhere to the baking paper while hot and you may damage your sample when tearing the hot paper away.

Last Weekend’s Melting Project

OK, so I did melt something last weekend, sorry I didn’t get round to posting it sooner. It was done like the sample last weekend, just a bit more elaborate. This is jute scrim, embroidered with organza torn in stripes, organza ribbon and knitting yarn made from manmade fibers. As you can see, I used some chain stitch to produce a more structured embroidery than by just weaving the threads into the scrim.

This is after heatgunning the whole thing. I know it is not that different from last week.

After heatgunning, I put it between two layers of crincled organza (it was sold as curtain fabric) with spunfab (like bondaweb) on each piece of organza. The organza is lilac in colour, I’ll have to shoot this again in better light.

Blogroll additions and other web finds

My Inet connection is kinda shaky today, it won’t let me upload pictures. So I’m contending myself with showing other people’s work. The blogs I’m introducing are all a bit on the poetic side, fall is always putting me in that mood. But I do read them year round.

Susan Lenz is a professional textile artist, her blog Art in Stitches is incredibly full of eye candy and wise words. Recently she has been on an organized artist’s residency program and produced many, many wonderful works. An absolute must see.

Another blog I love reading these days is Changeling things. It is about embroidery both modern and traditional, knitting and other crafts. The artist also has a very inspirational way of writing ab out her work, and many of her postings make people think and diskuss, so the comments are worth reading, too.

The writer of gerdiary only reveals about herself that she is German and female, her blog is a kind of literary diary. It features her own needlework (mainly quiling) and inspirational photographs, often together with a poem (by some professional author) that fits her mood. The main language is English, the occasional German texts are offered in translation either. It’s the ideal read for idle autumn hours.

Karen Ruane’s blog, Contemporary Embroidery, is all about her needlework. She has a very unique approach to embroidery, combining traditional whitework techniques with quilting, recycling used fabrics and a throghly modern aproach to presentation and topics of her work. She is inspireing me on so many levels.

There are two other links to things that caught my attention this week. I’m aware that these two don’t need promotion, but I loved them so much that I want to share them.

At the blog of colourlovers.com there’s a posting about Leaf Art which is either pictures made from dried leaves or miniature paintings done on dried leaves. I especially love the brown-in-brown japanese leaf paintings. Besides that, the colourlovers blog is a bit commercial, but it does often have useful or just beautiful content for those interested in design and any visual arts.

The last one is also a blog, but not a fiber art one. Urban Sketchers is a joint venture from many professional or semi-professional artists displaying their urban sketches. It really makes me want to go buy a moleskine or somesuch.

More Algerian Eye Stitch

Here is the next detail from my stitch along sampler. This is one of my favourite ones. I did algerian eye stitches with excentric holes in different combinations. The first square was done as the stitch diagram shows, for the other two a stitch went in every hole not in every second, and in the last one the wholes are in diffennt places, but I think this is easy enough to figure out. If not just ask.

This is the stitch diagram. Each little square represents a hole in the aida fabric (or any fabric). I did not number the stitches because there are many ways to do an eye stitch. I do them in one round, not in two, but that’s a matter of taste. I hope this is clear enough.