Thursday, 15 October 2009

Purple circle

I decided a while ago to make an embroidered piece to put in my Etsy shop. I have sold hand dyed supplies for about 18 months, and wanted to see how much interest there would be in my embroideries. As they are so time consuming to make , and I have other commitments, I will only be able to make a few now and again.

So I decided to take some photos of work in progress, although I missed out a few vital steps along the way, as I was so busy stitching, that I forgot to photograph! I used a technique based on cutwork circles, that I used a lot for the 'nine' exhibition.

I picked out a piece of blue fabric and some blue and purple threads. I am very naughty, and don't do preliminary sketches or write down ideas very much. I just like to play with colour and stitches on a spare piece of fabric (or quite often on the edges of the piece I'm working on!) and take things from there.



I drew a large circle on the fabric with washable marker and superimposed smaller circles (for the cutwork) on it, as the starting point. I then worked these in a variety of  purple threads.



I filled this with more small circles. You can see the faint pen marks. These were worked in blue thread, and the very centre in purple again. I wasn't sure what to do next (my work evolves as I stitch!), so rummaged through my fabrics, and found a bright green piece which provided quite a contrast. I decided to put this piece underneath the blue fabric, so you could see it through the holes.





At this point, I drew a square border around the purple circle and worked lots of blue circles randomly within the square until it was full. I cut round the edge very carefully, and buttonholed the entire edge to strengthen it. Then I placed it on a square of green fabric and attached it with lots of French knots.




I stitched this to a piece of calico stiffened with pelmet vilene and backed it with another piece of stiffened calico.




The final piece.
 More photos in my shop, therainbowgirl.etsy.com

5 comments:

Kate said...

A fascinating insight, thanks for sharing it :D (I have to admit I'm not a great one for sketching either - I definitely know that feeling of getting quickly carried away with all the lovely colours and textures and just seeing what happens!)
And I LOVE your boxes of thread - make mine seem paltry in comparison! must...buy....more..... :P

Kate x

Michala Gyetvai (Kayla coo) said...

Your threads are so organized!
Great textile hanging.x

Cathie said...

Oh my gosh Rainbow! I LOVE THIS. What an interesting piece. I also love just the first step where there are only a few cut out circles. Very very cool.

felterskelter said...

this is very beautiful

Angela said...

Absolutely gorgeous :o)