Surface, Structure, Stitch at City Lit: Week 5

 This week the focus of Surface, Structure, Stitch  at City Lit was on machine covered cords  " A line in space" .  For homework I'd looked  through my copy of  Stitch and Structure    by Jean Draper (  and also Janet Edmonds Three Dimensional Embroidery )   but had misread the instructions  on bringing  an image with strong mood , texture and colour.

  I'd remembered the 'colour' bit   and on a lovely sunny day  had drawn some of my shell collections   -  as  my daily drawings ( love the serendipity of  the combined drawings when backlit)  

  And on a sheet of watercolour paper  divided as we'd done for black and white studies in week 1.  I used neocolour crayons and W&N Watercolour Markers which I've had for ages ( and was reminded why  I still don't like them , back in the drawer they go! )

  I'd cut my thumb badly with a breadknife, tacking pebbles on my trainstitching piece on the way to class  was trickier than you'd expect!

What  we were doing with the images   we had ( or hadn't!)  brought in  was to describe in  words some of the qualities  of our image  then interpret the words in  drawn/collaged  lines . These examples Louise shared were based on a photo of a  cactus with red flowers, 

 These drawn  lines were then  translated into  stitched cords of fabric or thread wrapped string  

  I  did have some photos of shells with me  but  to more accurately  describe their qualities  used some of the  items  available in the class. 

 I was struggling to capture the true colours using the art materials  available so Louise suggested I construct ' moodsticks' ,  covering a stick/piece of card with scraps of fabric and winding threads  around them  from the exciting range of fibres available.  Similar  to  swatches prepared for weaving  but freer , with overlapping threads and colours giving more texture and optical colour mixing. This could get addictive!

 Then  an attempt  to make some machine wrapped cords : laying a string under free embroidery foot with feed dogs down  and using a wide zig zag   stitch and  pulling it  through. My poorly thumb hampered me somewhat as I couldn't hold it taut enough so  didn't have enough control.  

 Still , enough  to see the potential, discussing with Louise how they   could be coiled  or joined  together  to make circles  or stitched into a network .  I spent  the rest of the session gathering  bits to bring home  and try out on my own machine.
Enough  writing for now, time to go and play ! I could be some time...