Module 2 Chapter 9

Finally reached a point where I can send off a batch of coursework - only a few months late. Chapter 8 was decorating/texturing papers using flour paste, keeping loosely to the theme of opus anglicanum. For chapter 9 I have translated some of these into stitch. Here is a selection.

Above - Coils of metal shim coloured with heat, loose threads held down with long stitches.
Below - couched coils of wire and metal threads over free machining.


Below - transfoiled fabric covered with chiffon, free machining.

If you Can't Beat Them...

The children seem to spend a lot of time on YouTube and have been having fun making animations of their Harry Potter lego, so I decided it was time to have a go. I have uploaded a short clip of the pylons animation which can be found here (I hope).

Weekend in London and More Animation

Last weekend was a bit of a treat - there were two exhibitions in London I really wanted to see so I stayed over and overdosed on art on Saturday. I needed a long walk on Wimbledon Common on Sunday to recover before coming home. The first was Prism at the Mall Galleries, a wonderfully varied collection. Some of my personal favourites were Joan Baillie's Mysterious Stones in atmospheric rusty oranges and browns and Rachel Gornall's calm and restrained Cenote series. I was intrigued by Lois Woodyer's hangings with photo transfers of Canary Wharf combined with stitch and Catherine Dormor's hangings with photographic images of the process of sewing. The gallery was crowded with groups of mainly women happily discussing the pieces and taking tea.

Next stop was the V&A where I went to see Out of the Ordinary:Spectacular Craft. Sian had already pointed me in the direction of Anne Wilson's work that includes animation so it was exciting to see Errant Behaviour running. Over two screens, threads, pins and lace fragments wind, form into heaps and move. Sometimes they seem like animals or undersea creatures, sometimes they form tableaux like jungle vegetation stirring. Interesting to think about how much the effect is suggested/affected by the sound track.

When I got home, I did some surfing, idly wondering if I could do stop motion animation with equipment I already have (last time I did some was probably 35 years ago when my big brother borrowed Dad's cine camera and we filmed toys moving across the floor). I came across a useful little utility for turning a folder of jpg files into an avi - i.e. stills into a movie - really easily. Eureka! This has overcome the problem of the files being too big too save - I have been able to save the frames individually and join up afterwards. Playing last night, I was able to increase the number of frames and adjust the number shown per second to make a much smoother film.

Module 2 Chapter 7

Some of the samples using metal and metallic threads. Above is black felt sponged with paint overlaid with chiffon stencilled with gold mica flakes in a celtic pattern. Freely stitched with automatic patterns and spirals to echo the stencil.

Free machining densely in shades of gold with added wireform and shim.

These two are an exercise in showing how the effect of metal threads are affected by changing the bobbin colour. The top uses pink in the bobbin while the bottom picture uses the same metallics but this time with blue. Sorry this is a bit blurred - they are terrible to photograph and scan.

Exhibition News

Fri 22 and Sat 23 Feb 10-5, Sun 24 Feb 10-4 at Trinity-Henleaze United Reform Church Hall, Waterford Road, Henleaze, Bristol. Entry £2.

I am stewarding on Saturday afternoon so come and say hello.

More Distractions

After posting the pictures of stitching with metal threads I couldn't resist having a little play with Paint Shop Pro. I thought it was time to explore displacement maps after reading Maggie Grey's blog, so here are the results. These have been made by combining two of the photos from the Jan 16th post.

This is the same as the first but using tiling.


This uses the same photos but layered the other way up.

My other distraction today was to go on a workshop with the Embroiderers's Guild run by Orange and Blue, painting sketchbook covers. We built up the surface using cardboard and then many layers of paint. The pictures show the cardboard glued down then with 6 or 7 layers of paint. It isn't finished yet - I want to sleep on it before adding more, then it will need lots of layers of varnish.


I booked it thinking it would be fun day (which it was) and without any clear idea of what design to use. Somehow, those pylon shapes crept in.

A bit of Reassurance

We had our Embroiderers' Guild committee meeting at my house last week and one of our members gave a powerpoint presentation. Why is this relevant? Because she had borrowed a digital projector so I was able to see how my animated piece looks at full size for the first time (although without the canvases as background). Cool - as my children would say.

Post Christmas Catch Up

I have been beavering away but somehow did not get as far as the computer. I have been researching opus anglicanum and making related samples. The first picture is underside couching worked on canvas. Like so many things it looks more interesting on the back but I forgot to photograph it so I will have to add later.



Here are some of the samples for module 2 chapter 6, playing with metallics inspired by ecclesiastical embroidery. These are done with goldwork threads plus a little bit of painted wire mesh. I am working on more with bits of drinks cans etc. These are all tiny as very slow to make.

Trying Another Background

After seeing all my bits and pieces for the assessment piece, Sian gave me some more ideas for backgrounds, one of which was to try plain white panels set at angles. I like this idea - it can look interesting by itself while not being too busy when the projection is going. Here are some photos of my trials using artist's stretched box canvases - the mysterious dark shape at the right is a metre rule to show the scale. I haven't worried too much about placing the canvases other than trying to echo the lines/shapes that will appear - the arrangement would need to fit the space where it is being shown and the size of the projection may vary. I was hoping to get some strong shadows as well but may have to wait until the summer - it is cloudy and wet this week and we have had virtually no daylight in the house. The three pictures below show stages of the animation - the odd colour is because the canvases are bright white but the wall is slightly peachy. My husband has been very understanding about the blu-tac marks on the wall but I think he would draw the line at repainting it white just for a photo.

Picture quality isn't brilliant - it is a case of juggling focus on the projector and the camera and not getting in front of the light. It is quite interesting to see the slide projection close-up on the canvases as the greys split into different coloured pixels. One rainy Sunday, I should try copying the design in paints onto a spare canvas.

Animation Frames

In case it is not working, here are some stills from animation 1 on my website to get a flavour of it. The animation cycles through overlays of these images on a loop, so the second one gradually appears on top of the first and the first fades out. Then the third appears on top and the second fades out and so on ad infinitum. It is not as interesting as the black and white one but quite soothing.

Module 2 Chapter 3

Samples for contemporary laidwork - incorporating a shape. Three trials to interpret the design. Clockwise from top left - design on paper; machine stitching and strips of fabric over fabric shape; machine stitched shape overlaid with grid; threads wrapped over a frame held with hand stitches, shape created by stitching another grid on top. The second picture is a close up of this. The colour scheme refers back to work from module 1.

Sample for Background

A quick addition to the last post - a scaled down sample for a fabric background (20cm square). Top a scan of the sample, below it is overlaid with one of the frames from the animation printed onto a transparency.

Some further thoughts on using this piece in different ways 1) get individual frames professionally printed onto box canvases and hang as a series. 2) use individual frames as a basis for further digital development eg as a tube in Paint Shop Pro 3) play with simplified version with software for embroidery machine to produce repeatable motif.

Assessment Piece

Work continues on this piece (see September entries). I have finished the animation finally and need to sort out a background. Unlike the earlier drafts, I haven't published the animation on my website because the file is so large.

To clarify my ideas for the background, I have tried blu-tacking various things to the wall and projecting images onto them to get an idea of the effect. I have done this simply by printing small images onto OHP transparencies and using a slide projector so they are very grainy - the real thing would be better quality (I hope). In the photo below, the wooden stick on the left is a metre rule to give a sense of scale.

The first picture shows various pieces of fabric keeping the blue theme from earlier work - all but one are from my dyed samples so I could repeat roughly the same colours. If I used a fabric background, I would wrap toning threads around in straight lines to echo the paper samples. To see what I mean, see Animation 1 at my website.

An alternative idea is to use a metallic background so I tried sticking up a few different metal samples - eg puree tubes, shim, drinks cans coloured by heating (these are all bits I already had stashed away). From the picture below left you can see there is a problem with reflections and with some parts being too dark to show the image. The piece of metal at the bottom right of this picture with the clearest image is brass shim which has not been used and is smooth, but as it would be rather boring by itself at full size, I heated it over a picnic stove to add some colour - see picture below right.

There are of course other options - I like the idea of using something old and rusty but so far haven't found anything suitable. It needs to be a bit over 1m square and portable enough to wall mount for exhibiting (or maybe lean against a wall). It would also need to be fairly light coloured to show the black lines clearly - all suggestions gratefully received!

Perhaps I could create a project by taking a projector out and about to different locations and filming the results - for example by running the animation against some storage containers or warehouse walls or a gasometer. Now all I need is a fairy godmother with a data projector (is there such a thing as a battery model?) and a camcorder.

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Four little samples loosely based on laidwork. Clockwise from top left 1) scraps of fabric held in place by a grid of long stitches and cross stitches 2) torn fabric strips laid on soluble fabric, threads couched down with lines of machine stitching. Dissolved and applied to background with rows of running stitch 3) dyed pelmet vilene, wireform held down with long stitches, couched stuffed cotton ribbon, on top a grid of long stitches held down with small stitches at the intersections 4) close lines of long stitches, lines of tailor tacking held in place with cross stitch.

Module 2 Chapter 2 Continues

This is the second batch of designs based on laidwork. All of these were made using artist's masking fluid and I wanted to do these to have a more consistent colour scheme from which to work samples. Unfortunately, in some places the masking fluid stuck fast and wouldn't shift without tearing the paper even though I used the same paper as before.

Module 2 Chapter 2

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These are some little designs based on the idea of laidwork as used in the Bayeux Tapestry. Obviously this is a very free interpretation using layers of grids and adding shapes drawn from my pylon studies.

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The designs have been made using layers of Brusho inks with artists' masking fluid, masking tape and candle wax as resists and are each about 10cm square.

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You can see the different effects of the resists in these three orange samples which each use more than one. Masking tape leaves clearly defined straight lines while masking fluid gives a fairly sharp resist that can be painted into shapes (here curved lines). Rubbing a candle is a less efficient at resisting the ink but gives an interesting broken colour look at the large stripes top left).

Starting Module 2

Sometimes I don't know where the time goes; September seems to slipped by unnoticed. I didn't make it to the Knitting and Stitching Show at the NEC as I was taking part in Sing For Water in London, but the good news is I have booked my train ticket for Ally Pally in October.

Work continues on the animation as I am still tidying it. I have tried creating in different formats so I can try different ways of projecting, for example using Powerpoint. It is a bit academic at the moment as I don't have access to a data projector but I have used a stills as slides to get an idea of scale. I think this will be my large-scale piece as it doesn't fit any other category so I need now to plan the background for the projection.

I have also started on module 2, reading up about the Bayeux Tapestry and drawing some of the wonderful trees and animals from it.

Work in Progress

Now the children are back at school, I have been able to think seriously about the first assessment piece. I am experimenting with the idea of using the animation I created some months ago, replacing the digital image with stitching. I have started working stitched samples which I will scan into the computer.

My first idea was to use free machining with cable stitch to reproduce the uneven lines. I soon realised that the detail would become fiddly and that the thick thread looked too untidy. As I have an A4 scanner, I am restricted to this size for samples. When scanned, there were a lot of uneven shadows. The photos at the end of this post show the back and front of this sample (sorry, I am having trouble getting photos in the place I want them).

My second sample is handstitching on white cotton (photo at top of post). At first I used running stitch but then changed to long straight stitches. I used shades of black and grey to add variety to the lines and left it in the hoop for scanning. It will be interesting to see if the scanned image has shadows from where threads have been carried across the back and how effective this is - or will it just look messy.

As I am planning to lose the background before animating, I am making a further sample on white card, again with long stitches and shades of black and grey. The photo of the partially stitched sample shows shadows on the card which would be good to keep. I shall have to see whether a photograph or a direct scan looks better.

Metal Samples

I have put together some of the loose pieces made at summer school to make a book of samples using metal effects. The one above is a piece of tomato puree tube embossed and coloured with alcohol inks. I have put it on a background of painted puff paint and covered with silk paper and wire stitching, It hasn't photographed very well - even without a flash I was getting a lot of glare.

Below is a strip of crimped shim on top of fabrics coloured with transfer crayons and transfoil.



The cover for the book is small pieces of stitched metal underneath water soluble paper, stitched and partially dissolved, coloured with walnut ink and applied to a background of crumpled tissue on pelmet vilene. A little colour added with Moon glow sprays and joined with wrapped pipecleaners ( this is Maggie's influence!).

Visit to Slimbridge

Today we took a family Bank Holiday outing to Slimbridge and I finally had a chance to see the South West Textile Group's 'Flight' Exhibition - for some reason I thought it had already closed so this was a pleasant surprise but meant I was not armed with a notebook and pencil. I fell in love with the swarm of insects hanging from the ceiling and a piece called Landing Gear which played on the idea of aeroplane wheels and birds' feet.

During the week, I have been sorting out the samples from Summer School and making a book for the smaller ones. Hope to have photos here soon.