07.11.11
Sculpture inside a Needle’s Eye?
Marilyn on a gemstone
I found this while bopping about on the net this weekend. Not exactly stitching or dance related, but he DOES put his tiny sculptures inside the eyes of needles…
07.04.11
Toast
Monday Treasure
A possibly recurring series of cool needlework things I find on the web.
I found this on an old post on Craft recently and was just amazed at the lengths artists will take things. 
It’s kind of cool, though. Go look and then tell me what you think. Embroidery on Toast? Cross stitch on cereal? Cameos made out of oreos (OK, those are pretty cool…)
03.11.11
Beauty in the House…
Angled View of Poppy Embroidery
Yesterday on whim, after telling the staff at my Father’s favorite restaurant about his passing, I stopped at the local antique store, with the hope of finding a copy of Priscilla Magazine or Home Needlework or somesuch (I’m an antique publications fanatic).
Instead, I found this treasure. As usual, you can click the pictures for more detail. I highly recommend it. The stitching is exquisite.) It’s about 22 by 22 inches, still with the original price tag of 50 cents from Kindall. So I need to go do some research and track it down.
The design reflects much of the art needlework done in the 1890s through about 1910 in the U.S. This one is poppies. It’s stitched on linen in a thick filament silk – not twisted at all, it looks like they put enough strands in the needle to be about the equivalent of 4-5 strands of cotton floss. But because it’s so much softer, it blends much better than that much cotton would. I’m sure that this was packaged in this size as thread… I’ve seen the advertisements for it.
As you can see, it’s not faded at all, and the stitching is exquisite. There is a small triangular voided area in the poppies shown above, where the petals meet, that I thought was an error, but then I realized that all of the poppies in that position have identical voided areas. It was designed to be made into a pillow – the linen to back the pillow is attached to the embroidered linen, ready to be made.
Coveting the threads I can no longer get, and feeling very pleased with myself for finding this.
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- Entire Embroidery
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- Detail of open poppy
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- See the little trianglular voided spot? It’s in all the poppies shaped this way.
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- Detail of ribbon and the poppy buds
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- Detail of ribbon
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- Angled shot. I love how smooth the edges are on the stitching.
Edited 3/12/11 to add the photo of the poppy with the voided spot.
08.18.10
Precious?
Precious Kitty!
It’s something you sometimes hear in art circles – “Don’t get too precious” “Don’t be precious about it!” “Keep your work fresh, not precious.” Precious connotes perfectionism – sometimes overworking, sometimes underworking a piece in order to get it “just so.” For some reason, this is considered bad. (I’m a perfectionist…) But who am I to talk? When a friend complained about a town being too “twee,” I said, but I LOVE that town! (I also never told her that I was planning ot move there… and in fact, I didn’t – I fell in love and moved 2500 miles away instead!) maybe “precious” is in my blood.
You don’t hear the word precious thrown around in American needlework circles very often – sometimes I’ll hear it in the more avant-garde UK textile forums. I have, however, have had acquaintances tell me that American stitchers tend to replace creativity in design with perfect craftsmanship. Indeed, needlework kits feel the need to underscore “the back should look as good as the front.” And there is a fear here that someone will turn over your work and analyze the back… (I do, but not for neatness… I want to know HOW they did what they did!!)
Note on the photo – I’ve never met a cat named Precious that wasn’t psychotic and scary. Dora is NOT named precious, but she has the nickname of The Cuteness… does that count?
I’m not sure where I’m going with this ramble. So let me ask y’all a question – are spontaneity and craftsmanship deadly enemies? Can we have spontaneous, fresh design and still keep quality of stitching? Can stitching be taken into the “real art” world without sacrificing this?
07.02.10
Why I Carve Rubber Stamps
Some of my hand-carved stamps
I admit it… I’m a craft dilettante!
I was, several years ago, trying to integrate my rubber stamping hobby into my textile art. I loved the depth it gave backgrounds, and being able to use the stamps themselves as designs to stitch.
Then I ran into a problem. I had too many pieces to keep for myself, and, frankly, I didn’t just want to give them away to relatives and friends who might or might not appreciate them. (I have been asked on occasion, why would you want to do that by hand when a machine is so much faster? !) So it would be nice to sell some of my art.
Unfortunately for the situation, though not in the long run, copyright law applies to stamp designs (and needlework patterns, and designs in books, and coloring books… and a lot more, too!) You might think this is silly, since stamps are tools to make art, but how you are licensed and allowed to use the images you stamp varies by company to company. My stamp collection sometimes doesn’t specify company any more. Many of the stamps I have date from before I went looking for “angel” companies who allow you to sell your hand-stamped work. Even angel companies have different policies regarding how or whether you notify them. Prints of artwork created are generally not allowed, although this can be negotiable. I didn’t want to have to go to the bother of tracking down the specific policy of each and every stamp I owned, and then keeping all the paperwork needed to prove I was in compliance – and what if I made art that just came out so cool that I thought notecards made from it as prints would be neat? Out of luck.
I decided that the easiest thing for me, was just not to use commercial stamps at all any more. Enter learning to carve my own (which has, in turn, led to woodcarving as an actual hobby {I didn’t think I was capable of hobbies any more!})… Did I ever mention that I play with WAAAY too many crafts? Maybe this blog should be Craft Dilettante! instead of Stitching with a Shimmy!