What’s Going On

Since I’m back online I have been surfing a lot, and want to share a thing or two I found.

Shelley from mermaidspurse has posted a very wonderful tutorial on stitching pink carnations in needleweaving. Do check it out!

Meri has posted instructions on a surface stitch I’ve never seen before, it is somewhat similar to palestina stitch in appearance. I have jet to try it but it looks great.

Johnny Murder at donkeywolf is the guy who seems to have coined the term manbroidery, and his work is spectacular. He is sharing the blog with his partner Penny, she is, among other things, interested in spinning and working with her own yarn.

Ricard Saja blogs at historically inaccurate, naother “manbroiderer” who does surface embroidery over printed fabrics, and other fun and thoughtful things. (Warning! not work save)

To add a little bit of eye candy, here is a sneak peak on the oddity I’ve been working on on the commute last week. Yes, it’s a self-designed round-filet doily, but the design prooved unsuccessful (it won’t lie flat). No more on this, exept when I ever get round to fixing it. I’m prone to create such things when lovesick LOL (or just generally insane).

I also have new pets – lots of them. But that is a story for another day.

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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.

Tutorials and other web finds

I had some time for checking out other people’s blogs and general websurfing, and would like to share a few things I really liked.

Carol-Anne Conway at threads across the web has posted a tutorial about using a sinking needle . This is a special technique from japanese embroidery to pull the ends of heavy couched gold threads through to the backside of the fabric. To me, it looks like it could be useful for any couched work involving bulky, wire-like or otherwise defiant threads or materials.

At My Patchwork of Life there’s a tutorial about crocheting flowers using regular skirt buttons as a base . I haven’t tried it but it looks convincing and useful.

At Magpie’s Mumblings there’s a posting about ironing and heat-gunning several materials. It caught my eyes because I’ve been doing much in that direction lately myself. I appreciate it greatly when people share their experiences in that way, it always gives me new ideas.

At Arlee Barr’s blog There’s a tutorial about making fabric paper. It is two years old, but I just found it via a link in a new post of hers and it is the first online tutorial for this I have seen. Thank you for this one Arlee!

Clyde Olliver has a nice new website which showcases his work nicely. I just wanted to tell you in case you have stopped checking his half-dead blog. Yes I’m a fan.

new additions to my blog roll

One of the good effects of the take it further challenge is that I get to see lots of blogs that are new to me. They are all interesting and give me loads of new ideas, and it is probably quite arbitrary which ones I decide to add to my blog roll. So don’t be sad if your blog is not here. Nevertheless, I want to introduce a few of my new additions and invite you to have a look at them.

Monica from red to white blogs about her participation in the take it further challenge. Her blog is quite new, but very nice. She does nice embroideries, and shares her techniques freely. She is also a good writer and has interesting memories to share.

Vivian of Vivian in stitches does quilts, most of them pictorial. The blog also has lots of posts which are a good read, and lots of beautiful and skillfully done nature photographs. She takes part in the take it further challenge.

Jenny of Jenny’s Australian needleart blogs about her needlework. I found her via the take it further challenge either. Her work is very varied, it ranges from modern to traditional, from machine stitching digitized images to traditional reticella. She also has some nature photographs.

Angela from The adventures of angelcat is another take it further challenge participant. Her blog has loads of cross stitch, but also forays into modern needlework, and lots of cat pictures. And yes, also some great nature photography. I do admit that I’m in the mood for looking at such photos these days.

Mixpix from fibrefan.blogspot.com displays nature in stitches rather than in photographs, but in a really gorgeous way. She also does bobbin lace and needlelace.

You made my day!

Kate tagged me for the ” you made my day” award. Thank you, I really feel honoured. Now I’m supposed to tag ten other people, and have a hard time chosing. There are so many nice people out there, and many have been already tagged.
First, there’s Jowynn , not only for the eye candy and inspiration she keeps providing but also for her exeptional personality. Her nice comments, and her open blog posts about her struggle with her disease mean very much to me.
Dancing crow because she does lots of absolutely wonderful work, never boasts about it, and I just read that she has two hamsters, just like me.
Lynda , the purple missus and Susan D, because their blogs expanded my view about what fiber art can be and inspired me to lots of experiments.
I know Elizabeth has been tagged for this often enough, but her blog just never ever fails to make my day.
Linda for all the eye candy she provides, in the form of fiber art, sketches and nature photographs.
Carol-Anne for her absolutely beautiful blog about chinese and other traditional needlework. Her photos and explanations are so good that Iearned from them although I’m no into chinese embroidery.
Crazystitcher for the sake of this funny embroidery
Jude for sharing her creative processes and wise thoughts about quilting so freely.
Charley Parker , a webcomic artist and professional illustrator who writes a great blog about art and artists, because I learn so much from his blog, and because I just had to tag someone a bit geeky. Of course, I won’t mind if he doesn’t have time for tagging people and such.

New and old challenges

I’m sorry, there are still no updates on my embroidery, because I haven’t done any. There’s a lot going on in my life right now, maybe I’ll be able to tell you more in a few days or weeks, so I’m busy. Also, christmass and a few birthdays are looming, and everybody has knitted stuff on their wishlist. Stangely, no one ever wants something really creative for christmass. So I’m knitting until my fingers get sore, just like every year. Of course, I cannot really show these before christmass, so this place will be a bit empty until then.

Sharon Bogon, who was running the tast challenge, will launch another challenge on January first, which again will last one year. it is called the Take it Further Challenge and will be about design rather than about the stitches themselves . I have already signed up, and hope that everything will have calmed down a bit for me by then, so that I can participate in a meaningful way. The fact that it is a monthly challenge will surely make it easier.

Sharon has already posted a list of participants, it is here . As far as I know you can still sign up for it. I hope to read something from many of my readers and other tast participants next year. Of course you can take part if you haven’t been taking part in tast.

the fascination of pattern

When I needed something mindless to do on the commute this week I started knitting little things in order to make a dent into my stash of socks wool leftovers. When I was bored in class I doodled multicolour knitting patterns to use later. I wasn’t really planning to publish them,, then I saw the postings on pattern by Jowynn (gold embroidery) and Elizabeth (pattern darning) , and thought that my doodles might be a useful addition to a discussion, although they are nowhere near as great as the work of those two.

I’m also quite sure that any possible combination of knitting stitches has been done before, thinking them up was fun nevertheless. The little crosses are supposed to be the colour of the background, the green and blue parts additional colours. But of course they also can be done the other way round.

The last picture shows a pattern that was so simple I didn’t write it down.

Things that caught my attention last week

The internet is full of wonders, and I would like to share my latest discoveries with you. As a little eye candy, I include a little rice stitch sampler at the end. I have posted this before, so I won’t make a fuss over it now.

My aunt sent me the link to Jo Wood’s website . Jo Wood does bead embroidery on handmade fabric. They are realistic flowers and landscapes for the most part, and absolutely beautiful.

While just surfing arround, I found a few new addititons to my Blog roll, I want to highlight three not very well known, but really nice ones.

Textiledreamer is a blog about tradititonal needlework for the most part. It has cross stitch, traditional quilts, weaving and other embroidery. All is so well done that it is an inspiration even when you do different things. And It has a very good tutorial for needlemade lace. That alone is worth a visit if you like to try out new things. Unfortunately it isn’t updated that often, but this kind of work takes time, after all.

The second one is the blog of Beate Knappe , a German textile artist. Her main focus seems to be the embellisher machine, together with other felting, hand embroidery and some mixed media experiments. Again, her stuff is so beautiful that it is an inspiration for me although my own work is somewhat different.

Parkview 616 by Jowynn is a blog about hand embroidery. Her work is very nice, and she shares her creative processes and inspirations freely. Also, don’t miss Jowynn’s flickr account where she has many more samples of her work, including many for tast. Jowynn does great work for tast either.

Enjoy!

Now here’s the rice stitch sample, only the lower part is actually rice stitch. I used 8 strands of embroidery floss for the big cross and three strands for the cover stitches.