Cloth doodling

Cloth doodling?... Well, I can't think of a better name for it! It's what you do when you just pick up the cloth and thread and without really knowing where it's going, you start something ;)

It's what you do when you forget the iron and your sketchbook!


















Calico and two strands of DMC embroidery thread.


















A design outline sketched in graphite and then stitched using blanket/buttonhole stitch.


















Couldn't resist peeking! Reverse applique using a scrap of hand-dyed, upcycled silk, in a slightly darker tone as the under layer.


















For successful reverse applique it's important to do the stitch so that the passing of thread through thread happens on the inside of your design, where you'll be cutting through the top layer of cloth.


















Intricate designs are hard to stitch in this fashion. It's diffiuclt to get around all of those complex corners!


















This is how it's looking so far.

Reading through missed posts on Jude's blog yesterday, I was introduced to Manya Maratou's blog Mythcolor. If you don't know Manya already, I recommend that you visit her soon! Have a lovely Sunday afternoon!

Boogie: Giving it a new spin!

If you follow my blog regularly, you'll know that I have been working much paler recently, and am now adding a little brightness to that... to give a new spin to my design work!

Here's a series of images showing how the new slow bag design - Boogie - is developing so far.















The pattern for giving the cloth a new spin.



















Drawn out in... yes, Kaye you guessed it... biro!



















The first blade stitched and cut (the reverse applique technique that I am so fond of using).



















The second blade stitched and cut.



















The second blade stitched and cut, and shot on one of those clever angles that always makes work look 100 x more interesting than it might ordinarily appear to be ;}



















The third blade stitched and cut.















The final blade stitched and cut.















Here's the first upcycled denim patch with all the blades finished.















Now for some kantha!








Photoshopping... a sneak preview of where this is headed.















The reverse of the reverse applique. Not too messy.



















First patch done! How great is that?

More later!

P.S. Eben, incase you're reading this, "hOney, I used your old jeans!" Love from Mum xxx

Artifacts

Cutting the reverse applique.



















First part cut.



















This is where the idea came from. A Pre-Columbian gold alloy ornament from the Central Bank's gold museum.

I don't think this first piece will go anywhere, since it was more about experimenting with a technique, to see if the idea might work as I wanted it to. Now that I know it can work, I can spend more time on the initial design stage ('coz this first little figure was not well plotted). I'm happy with the effect, the primitiveness. I'm surprised at what can be achieved with just a simple buttonhole stitch. I'm also thinking this "same color on same color" idea is probably going to feature alot in this year's adventures. Still wild about texture!