Rock carvings: The tattooed deer

And what if I was to use the pattern program on my sewing machine to do the filling up on these Wiking symbols? Although I've chosen a rather simple Bernina model, there is still quite a selection of automatic patterns available on it -

I tried out three of them on this deer, along with some free-motion sewing - and the drawing was delightfully filled in no time! (Argh! Why is there such a thing as preparing dinner and cleaning up and all those other chores - I'd rather be playing all day long!)



When tracing my drawing with the parchment paper and pencil method, I always get a reverse version as well - this time I used it on the backside of an ice-cream paper box, to get a cardboard template to use for another project -

and look, how funny it happened to turn out from the printed side - maybe you can call this some sort of 'tattoo' as well!



(German summary: Und was wäre wenn ich eines der vorgegebenen Muster der Nähmaschine zum Ausfüllen verwenden würde - auch bei meinem einfacheren Bernina-Modell gibt es da so einige zur Auswahl ...

Und als 'Nebenprodukt' habe ich beim Durchpausen auf einem Eiscreme-Karton noch ein buntes 'Tattoo' dazubekommen!)

Rock carvings: The solar horse

Now I've coloured the elegant solar horse too - using simple satin stitches and broadened chain stitches - the material is darning wool and sock wool.

While working on these little pieces, I'm pondering over how to assemble them in the end. They remind me a lot of comic strips, actually - maybe I can find a way to mount them in that manner, like a pictural collage or so ...



So far, I've preferred the classic tracing and transferring method using sandwich or parchment paper and a soft pencil. I do have an iron-on-transfer pen and dressmakers' carbon paper at home too, but I find the lines which I get from these too dominant for this kind of embroidery - and as I'm not going to wash it, the lines won't wash out either.

How do you transfer your motifs from paper to cloth?



(German summary: Das Sonnenpferd ist jetzt fertig; teilweise bunt bestickt, mit einfachen Spannstichen und breitem Kettenstich - als Material habe ich teils Stopfwolle, teils Sockenwolle verwendet.

Als Paus- und Übertragungstechnik verwende ich das altbewährte Butterbrotpapier und einen weichen Bleistift - Bügelstift und Schneiderkopierpapier machen mir hier zu kräftige Linien, und waschen möchte ich die Stickerei eigentlich auch nicht. Wie macht ihr das in so einem Fall?)

Rock carvings: The majestic boat woman

And so I've filled up the empty space between the contours with some handstitches - simple ones, like satin stitch and bound threads, red and multi-coloured for the woman, black-grey-white for the boat.

To me, this is a picture of a calm, majestic person - a grown-up woman - standing upright in her boat, looking out over the sea, facing the journey she is on, whatever will come, until she reaches the shore she is heading for.

(German summary: Ich habe die maschinengenähten Konturen jetzt mit einfachen Handstichen ausgefüllt - und über diese majestätische Frau nachgedacht, die so ruhig und aufrecht in ihrem Boot steht, und nach vorne schaut.)

Re-start with rock carvings

Oh girls - it's been a while ... Not that I have been too idle, but when you once stop posting regularly - due to the heat and all those summer holiday activities, for example - it's real hard finding a good access again ... Guess this happens to us all once in a while.

I know, it's still summer, but as my blog-friend Elizabeth/Landanna is now making a new start with a whole bunch of fresh photos on Viking rock carvings from her recent holiday in Sweden, I will hang on there and join her in mutual inspiration.

Yesterday I found these two pictures in a tourist folder regarding the rock carvings in Bohuslän, which she sent me in a mail - and today I 'drew' the outlines by free-motion stitching on my sewing machine.



A 'solar horse', the text in the folder said - I think it's a very elegant design, as modern as ever!

I like this second one very much too - makes me think of a woman on her way in a boat.



I've been doing some other free-motion embroidery on the sewing machine lately, noticing that practice really is the only thing taking you further on this matter ... I'm drawing the lines with the needle in a kind of 'Navajo technique' - sewing a couple of inches, then moving backwards again, forwards - slightly more than before - backwards, a bit less - until I'm happy with the thickness of the line.

I prefer this to going round the whole piece several times - the small motions make me feel that I have the line more under control.

My thread is very thin too - normal polyester or cotton sewing thread - therefore it's even more important to sew several times to get the outlines clearly visible.

I've also discovered that it's possible to fill the under thread bobbin with cheap overlock thread from a big thread spool - just put the spool on the table, close to your sewing machine and use your fingers to lead the thread on to the usual bobbin spooling gear.

Tomorrow I will proceed giving these two rock carvings some colour - and I will be back regularly now again, it's a promise.

(German summary: Oh Mädels - wie die Zeit vergeht ... Und eigenartigerweise, wenn man einmal eine Blog-Pause eingelegt hat, ist es verflixt schwer, wieder einen Anfang zu finden - geht es euch auch so?

Ich packe jetzt auf jeden Fall die Gelegenheit beim Schopf, da meine Blogfreundin Elizabeth/Landanna einen Neustart mit frischen Fotos von Felsenbildern aus dem Schweden-Urlaub wagt, und schließe mich gleich an.

Ich habe mit vielen Vor- und Zurückstichen, mit einem dünnen, schwarzen Faden freie Maschinenstickerei ausprobiert - und dazu den Unterfaden gleich mit günstigem Overlock-Garn gefüllt.

Und noch etwas: ab jetzt schreib' ich wieder öfter - versprochen.)

Rock carving fragments/Viking comic

A couple of new fragments, which I would call 'Viking comics', as they show moving men and animals in action ...

Although I'm not quite sure if this first motif really is a Viking one ... With no doubth it shows reindeers, and this kind of carving is more likely to be of Sami origin - there are similar Sami pictures in the book 'People of Eight Seasons' by Ernst Manker, which I once borrowed at the Stockholm City Library. (More about the Sami people in this earlier posting.)


When visiting Sweden in spring, I went to the Historical Museum in Stockholm with my drawing pad and jotted down everything which caught my eye in this pictural respect.

At the museum shop there were some fabric prints too, and I think these sheep might be influenced by those prints ...


As far as I know, this last one is really a genuine rock carving found in the county of Bohuslän (Sweden), at Tegneby, Tanum:


The embroidery technique itself is not very spectacular - I just used the common basic ones in order to keep it as simple as possible and let the graphics of these ancient, unknown artists talk for themselves.

(My friend Elizabeth/Landanna wrote in her blog today that she'll be posting about 'helleristningar' (rock carvings) tomorrow or during the weekend - so why don't you pop over and have a look - I will for sure!)

(German summary: Drei ganz simple Fragmente, aus dem Bilderschatz der skandinavischen Geschichte - die dargestellten Tiere und Menschen, alle in Bewegung, lassen mich fast an ein Comic strip denken ...)

Fragments of two creatures/Zwei Tierfragmente

The fragments of today picture two rather important creatures in the Celtic world: the first one is a dragon - this specific one adapted from the 'Book of Kells' -



and the second is the fish, which was of course of high a value for the daily nutrition in the Wiking era. (The outlines for this very fish are taken from a rock carving.)



I've used a simple, rather heavy couching stitch for outlining the fish, and a combination of stem-stitch and couching for the dragon; the thread I've used for the dragon is a hand-dyed variegated one - I'm quite pleased with the bi-coloured effect it makes.

(German summary: Diesmal sind zwei Tiere bei meinen Fragmenten dabei: der Fisch und der Drache - einmal inspiriert von einer Felsmalerei, einmal vom "Buch der Kelten".)

Viking metal fragment/Wikingerfragment

I'm so excited about the fragment I did today, that I have to show it to you right away:



As so often, my inspiration was boosted when I read my friend Elizabeth's posting, where she had put a very interesting link to a historical documentation on Vikings.

What catched my eye first when watching the film were the metal helmets, and so I began stitching the outlines on a fabric fragment, using a couched split stitch. While working on it, I pondered which filling stitch to use - until I remembered having some beer can metal hidden in my stash - Irish beer, mmm ...

Then I added a couple of antique sequins and beads - and there it was, the Viking metal fragment!

Even if I'm aware of that I'm spoiling you rotten by adding yet another fragment - I think this one is so closely connected to the first, that I don't have much of a choice:



If you want to see the original rock carving - the picture is published on the homepage of Bornholm's Museum in Denmark and first linked to by Elizabeth/Landanna again - here is where you'll find it.

For this 'rock carving', I've used the antique sequins again, and the stitches are - well, a bit of free style.

If you have followed the link to the historical documentation on Vikings (which I can really recommend!) and maybe had a look at the rock carvings, too (interesting!) - I think you are now prepared to lend your ear to some Viking music as well ;-) ...

and I'm pretty certain, that if you don't happen to have a son that particular age, you've never heard this sound before - click to hear here (Swedish "Amon Amarth") and here (Icelandic "Tyr"). Give it a chance - it's not that bad when you get used to it :-)!

(German summary: Ein neues Fragment, für mich aufregend, weil ich es hier mit einer Art Metallapplikation kombiniere - Bierdosenmetall, recycled ... Es geht viel um das Wikinger-Thema, als historische Dokumentation, Runensteine, Metal-Musik ... bitte folgt einfach den Links!)

Bayeux stitch fragment

In ancient times, when thread and yarn were rare and precious and you were eager to have as much as possible of it shown on the front side (and not to waste it on the back side), the Bayeux stitch was often used for covering the surface of a fabric in a decorative way.

This stitch is actually an old Anglo-Saxon variation of laidwork: on the front side, it ressembles satin stitch, but instead of letting the yarn pass across the reverse side, the thread is brought back up to front again very close to where it went down. A second layer is then sewn in intervals at a right angle to the first layer and held down with a short stab stitch.

All these three elements can be done with the same or with different yarns.

It's really quite simple to learn and gives a variety of possibilities in shading colours and effects through the different layers. (A useful link for working out the bayeux stitch is this pdf-tutorial by Jan Messent herself, presented by The Embroiderers' Guild.)

Here I've tried a fragment of it, using self-dyed mouliné for the bottom layer, a thin cotton thread (hand-dyed too) for the vertical layer and for the outline stitch, and finally a metal thread for the couching stitches.



My inspiration for this fragment had its origin in this posting of my friend Elizabeth/Landanna in Denmark, where she presents a wonderful book of Jan Messent, "Celtic, Viking & Anglo-Saxon Embroidery".

(Here you have another link for having a further look into the book.)

(German summary: Dieses Fragment zeigt den Bayeux-Stich, ein sehr alter angelsächsischer
Stich, der eine Art Kombination und Variante des Plattstiches mit dem Überfang- oder Bucharastich ausmacht - damals eine wirtschaftliche Notwendigkeit, heute auch eine vielseitige Gestaltungsmöglichkeit.

Bitte folge auch den links oben zu dem Buch von Jan Messent und zu meiner Freundin Elizabeth, die mich erst darauf aufmerksam gemacht hat!)

Stitching "Munin" - Odin's raven

This is Munin, one of allfather Odin's ravens. Munin means "memory", and together with Hugin ("thought"), he was sent out every morning to investigate what mankind was doing and then report it to Odin. Odin was always worried that his ravens would not return, and that "thought" and "memory" (of the old religion) would then be lost forever. (Old Nordic mythology)

I started with embellishing a piece of fine linen to a woolen cloth, back and front several times, until the two layers were melted together. Then I drew up the outlines with a soft pencil, stitched them with grey wool in chainstitch and worked a couching stitch over the chainstitch with some red strands of wool. I added some quilting stitches with a linen thread at the wings (split-, stem-, satinstitch and french knot for the details).

The runes to the left mean "Munin".

I didn't use real embroidery yarn - the grey one is actually a fine knitting wool, the red one comes from an old woolen tassle. For the stitching background, I like the combination of linen on wool a lot - the wool softens and stiffens the linen (that means you don't need a hoop), and still there is a good linen-feeling in the material.