Drifting on the Breeze

July 27, 2016

Drifting on the Breeze

It has been, and still is, freezing cold, wet and windy here in Adelaide. As much as there are things that should be done outside, I have been hibernating, waiting and hoping for warmer weather,

Ever since I finished 'Over the Hills', (forever ago) I have had other fun and friendly characters finding their way onto my scribble note pads, waiting patiently to one day come to life in stitches. I have a million (well maybe not quite) things I could and should be stitching, but I think it is time to get one of the characters off the notepad and bring him to life in stitches.

The blank 'canvas' is ready to go - except of course it is not canvas, but silk, backed and stabilised so it can support the stitches.
For these types of pieces I don't put any of the design on the front. One reason is that with no marks to cover, I can make changes if I want to, without having to worry about hiding any lines. The added advantage is, that these stitches will hold the layered fabrics firmly so that they won't shift.

I draw the pattern on the wrong side of the backing fabric before I stretch that and the main fabric onto my frame. (If you want to try this, keep in mind, this should be a mirror image of the final embroidery.)

To transfer the design to the front, I then stitch along all the design lines with fine silk. This may sound a bit tedious, but I don't mind this stage. It gives me time to ponder how to stitch the finished piece. I can vary the size and spacing of the running stitches for the different elements. If there are lots of overlapping elements, I may use different colours for each, so the lines will make sense and not just look like a confusing mess on the front.

If you look closely at the picture above, you can see that the waves are drawn right across the everything else. This is another advantage of this kind of design transfer - you can draw in 'layers' so that lines are continued behind others parts.

The wavy, blue lines, are part of finished piece. I was trying to work out how to stitch a breeze, and up with the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, faint, broken lines could be the answer. They too are stitched from the back but I have kept the running stitches stitches quite short on the front so they become wavy lines of dots. Is that what breeze looks like, I wonder?

It is ready to go. It doesn't look much yet, or make much sense, I know. There are waves, a blank 'blob' in the middle and some bumpy hills at the bottom.