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.)

The Goose Maiden/Die Gänsemagd

So this is The Goose Maiden - a small wall hanging, different fabrics, wool and ribbons punched with the embellisher, decorated with hand embroidery, beads, sequins and free motion machine embroidery.

When I visited Sara in Alicante earlier this year, she gave me a few printed faces of hers - so yes, this is one of her fabric faces which I've used for the maid. Ah, and the goose itself is actually a painted tin button - you can still get hold on some buttons like these in old Viennese haberdashery shops!

(German summary: Die Gänsemagd - ein kleines Wandbild, daß ich mit dem Embellisher gepuncht und danach mit Hand- und Maschinenstickerei, Perlen und Pailletten bestickt habe. Das gedruckte Gesicht ist von Sara - sie hat mir ein paar von ihren geschenkt - den bemalten Zinnknopf habe ich in einem Wiener Kurzwarengeschäft gefunden.)

The resurrection of the sea monster/Das Seeungeheuer ist erwacht!

Yesterday I told you about the kit I bought at The Museum of Medieval Stockholm - and I got so tempted to start embroidering a bit again, that I kept on all day, until it was finished!

(The original illustration is taken from 'Dialogus creaturarum moralizatus', if you want to read more about it.)

As this simple kit basically just consists of the illustration printed on natural linen and a couple of mouliné threads and some single beads, not even suggesting which stitches or colours to use, I felt free to take my own hand-dyed threads instead and to practise long and short satin stitches, which I have rarely done before.

For the background 'water', I used chain stitches, broadening some of them for more variation. And as some medieval embroideries were known to be enriched by bead and metal thread embellishments, I let myself get carried away this time with some of that glittery stuff too ... using the contents of my new storage box and the jewel picker!

(German summary: Diese kleine Stickerei hat mich so in den Bann gezogen, daß ich es gestern noch fertiggestickt habe! Und da das Kit sehr minimalistisch gehalten war, habe ich kurzerhand Fäden und Perlen ausgetauscht und richtig 'byzantinisch' losgelegt!)

The voracious sea monster/Das gefräßige See-Ungeheuer

I'm back from my journey to the Northern hemisphere, still busy unpacking my treasures which I found there - among other things a funny little embroidery kit with a voracious sea monster.

The illustration is taken from one of the first books that was printed in Stockholm in 1483, and I found it at the shop of the Medieval museum. The kit itself is simple and very basic, more of an inspiration than an actual guideline - but it was the simpleness that charmed me!

I treated myself to a new, big storage box for my rocailles beads as well - just for the joy of having them displayed like a palette of colours - a feast for the eye.

And finally, I found a very useful little gadget again: it's a 'jewel picker', a tool with a fine, slightly sticky tip (probably silicone), for picking up small beads, sequins, paper cut-outs etc. I bought it at 'Panduro', a Swedish craft store, but the brand seems to be Japanese ('Marvy/Uchida').

(German summary: Ich bin von meiner Reise in den Hohen Norden wieder zurück, mit im Gepäck u.a. eine kleine Stickerei - das gefräßige See-Ungeheuer eben -, sowie eine große Plastikbox für meine Rocailles und ein praktisches kleines Helferlein, mit dem man winzige Perlen, Pailletten etc. gut erwischen kann.)

New year - new projects/Neues Jahr - neue Projekte

Ooops, and again this year is running along much faster than I thought it would ...

As I've had problems with my internet connection lately, I started the year concentrating on cleaning up and sorting out my work-space/studio - a never-ending job it seems, as I gladly allow myself to drift off the cleaning and instead start arranging the freshly found objects into some new projects ...

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I have a lot of interesting stuff there in my stash and really should dig into this before considering any further shopping adventures - does that sound familiar to you ;-)?

But of course there must be exceptions, like for haberdashery or bargain leavings and leftovers ... :-)

On Etsy, I recently found a bag of coloured fulled/felted cloth scraps for sale and thought they would be nice to combine with some wool thread embroidery on felt. Actually, I've planned to use them together with pieces of old sweaters, felted in the washing machine - and maybe some embellished/punched wool as well.

So I started with a small project - it's a cover for a wheat&lavender cushion - the type you heat up in the microwave or in the owen for comforting warmth.



About a fortnight ago, Elizabeth/Landanna wrote about her needlebooks and how dear they are to her. Her description of them was so inspiring, that I suddenly felt the urge to possess a needlebook, too ...

All materials were already there in my stash - I just had to put them together!



And while working on the cushion cover, I've simultaneously started stitching on another little needlebook, using the same materials as for the cushion ...

Guess the cleaning-up has to be postponed again!

(German summary: Beim Aufräumen fallen mir immer wieder interessante Materialien aus dem 'Fundus' zu - und ich lasse mich gerne ablenken! 'Nadelbrief' hat für mich so altmodisch und verstaubt geklungen, bis ich das Posting von Elizabeth/Landanna gelesen habe - und mir auch ganz dringend eines machen mußte ...! Der Wärmekissenbezug ist aus Walkstoffresten auf Filz - da kommen noch ein paar Stickereien hinzu.)

Embellished Flower Fragments/Blumenfragmente

In the beginning of last summer, I tried some natural dyeing with raspberries and blackberries, freshly picked in my garden - I filled a glass with two handful of berries, put some wool roving, handspun threads and thin cloth in, added some water and let it rest in the sun for almost a week before rinsing.

Here I've used the dyed roving for the flower heads - the background is a piece of white industrial felt, which I've embellished with some extra wool roving to get a softer and more 'natural' feeling. The threads used here are self-dyed too, but not with the berries.



Next time I will try boiling the berries (or other plants) for a stronger colour - if you visit Carolyn Saxby's blog, you'll find her wonderful easy 'recipe' for natural dyeing here.

(German summary: Diese mal gibt's zwei Fragmente mit gepunchten Blumenmotiven aus Wollvlies, das ich mit Himbeeren und Brombeeren gefärbt habe: Zwei handvoll Beeren, Wolle, feinen BW-Stoff, Fäden und Wasser in ein Glas gegeben, eine knappe Woche in die Sonne gestellt, ausgespült, fertig.

Nächstes mal werde ich aber erst einen Sud aus den Beeren kochen, wie im Rezept von Carolyn Saxby beschrieben, um eine intensivere Tönung zu erhalten.)

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".)

Another fragment - and a gadget

This is another leaf fragment - this time I've chosen a more closed form for the embellished wool and I've also pointed out the outlines with a stem stitch.

The fine nerves of the leaves were done with a normal sewing thread, in order to get them real fine.

For the background I've used the coffee-tea-walnut dye once more - I find it's being very useful for 'oldening' the fabrics a bit.

Did you know that you can re-use your teabags and coffee filters for dyeing by just drying them after drinking and then using them for dyeing later on? And that all parts of the walnut tree - hulls, nuts, nutshells, leaves, bark, root - contain 'juglon' - the dyeing content of the tree. (I've learned all this in 'Färben mit Pflanzen' by Dorit Berger - and here is another link, where you can read about the herb walnut and its medical use.)



As I'm getting back a bit more into sewing and embroidering again - and finding my eyes are growing older (unfortunately not only the eyes ;-)) - I'm happy to have found a little helper for threading the fine needles.

Even if I'm not so fond of owning a lot of gadgets for every single purpose, this is one that I've really come to cherish - it's a Japanese made (Clover) half-automatic needle threader.

You just insert your needle in the needle slot, lay your thread into another slot, press the lever, pull the needle out again - and voilà! - by magic, your needle is threaded!



It's a mechanical little thing (no batteries!) and I cannot figure out how it functions - but it works! You can however only use quite fine needles for it - on the other hand, those with a big eye I can still manage without the gadget! In Europe, the price seems to be around €15.

(German summary: Noch ein Blatt-Fragment, diesmal eine geschlossene Form mit Stielstich in den Konturen und normales Nähgarn für die feinen Blattnerven. Ich habe auch ein kleines Gerät entdeckt, daß mir das lästige Einfädeln bei sehr feinen Nähnadeln erleichtert. Und dann hab' ich noch gelernt, daß man gebrauchte Tee- und Kaffeefilter für's Färben wiederverwenden kann und daß alle Teile des Walnußbaumes braun färben!)

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!)

Fragments/Fragmente

What is our life if not a bundle of fragments - material ones, like our scraps and collections of things; non-material, like our memories, visions and longings ...

Still, fragments do not only give testimony of earlier greatness - they can also indicate the idea of what could become splendid and meaningful if pursued and attented to.

After my divorce about six weeks ago I haven't had much power to do other creative work than a bit of knitting - but now I feel it's time to get back to 'textile investigations', as I think Sara would put it.

Do you remember the 'whatiffing-project' quite some time ago?

I enjoyed that sort of experimenting with fibers and techniques a lot and would like to continue it, just changing the size and not necessarily connecting it with the embellisher, but to keep it open for all sorts of - mostly textile, of course - try-outs that strike me: fragments.



If you'd like to join in, please feel free to do so - in a similar or in a different way, whatever suits you best - it would be just marvellous to have a bit of exchange of ideas and mutual inspiration!

My concept would be to keep the material involved quite simple: using scraps and stash material, recycling paper and cardboard for the mounting, experimenting freely with whatever comes my way - and to present it at least once a week.

I chose the format of approximately 9x13 cm (3,5x5") for the fabric, or background, as I thought it to be neither too big nor too small for a sample and allowing you to mount it on a plain A6 standard card if you like (or later on even using it as an AMC or greeting card).

I found some linen and canvas scraps, and as they were far too white, I dyed them with some teabags, a used coffee filter and a couple of walnut hulls from the garden. After rinsing and drying the fabrics, I was most satisfied with their worn and 'ancient' look :-).



This first card is a leaf, not printed, but lightly embellished (dry felted) with wool roving onto the linen scrap, then finished-up with a couple of small stitches with a thin metal thread. The backing is made out of recycled cardboard (cereal boxes have the right paper weight!).

(German summary: Nach längerer Pause habe ich mich entschlossen, ein etwas abgeändertes 'Whatiffing-Projekt' zu beginnen - Fragmente, eben - kleine textile Experimente aus einfachen und schon vorhandenen Materialien, Stoffgröße ca 9x13, mit Motiven und Techniken, die mich gerade interessieren - vielleicht möchte jemand mitmachen?)

Quite busy spinning, crocheting, embroidering .../Textiles Allerlei

I've been carding some bamboo, fine wool and silk fibers together for a very soft and delicate yarn. As I didn't find any bamboo fibers in green, I decided to dye some and mingle them with the white roving - funny, but in my opinion it looks more 'bambooish' that way.

Slower treadling, just to the point of holding the fibers together, made this yarn as soft and delicate as I wanted it to be - then plied with a very thin cotton thread.

I still have some problems with the new slide yarn guides, though - they just don't seem to stay where I want them, but keep sliding towards the bobbin ... Anyone else who's got the same problem, or am I doing something wrong?



I've been playing around, doing some necklaces too - using cotton yarn and glass, bone and wooden beads from my stash. Thought it could be a nice thing to wear now to the summer clothing.



This is how the embroideries proceed for 'My Neighbour's Garden':



and for 'The Vineyards':



Sara is coming on Saturday - maybe we'll do some acid dyeing this time ... :-) By the way, if you want to read about really archaic natural dying, go visit Manya Maratous' wonderful Greek 'Mythcolour'-blog!

(German summary: Bambus-, Woll- und Seidenfasern - und laaangsames Treten - machen diese Wolle sehr weich und geschmeidig. Allerdings wollen die neuen gleitenden Fadenhalterungen immer wieder von selber Richtung Spule gleiten - ärgerlich. Mache ich etwas falsch oder hat noch jemand die gleichen Probleme damit?

Und dann gibt's noch ein paar Bilder von Halskettenspielereien mit buntem Baumwollgarn und verschiedenen Perlen, für's Sommergewand - und davon, wie die beiden gestickten und gepunchten Bilder voranschreiten - fleißig diesmal, gell?)

All shades of grey/Graubunte Fäden

A friend asked me if I wanted some threads, which had been left behind by a lodger who had moved on. "Threads? Yeah, sure," I said.

Well, here they are, and I'm now trying to figure out what to do with them.

Straight threads, entangled threads, wound threads, all different shades of grey. A metaphor for life.



Among the threads there were three rope-like items - neat threads wound around thick strands of other threads - and I started with them, sewing them together like for a bowl, trivet, mat ...



I also tried out the threads on my daughter's flower loom (when googling about flower looms, I learned that this is a revival tool from the '70:s - didn't know that!).

I like the flowers best when they're a bit sloppy and not too neat - and this seems to be the perfect stuff for that look! I could imagine how great a waist-coat or a belt would be with these flowers - maybe with a felted center to it as well ...

What I enjoy about these threads is that there are several matching shades and that there is such a lot of material! This gives me the opportunity to play and experiment with them, considering punching the whole entangled batt with the embellisher as a 'filling embroidery' to the fabric background ...

Thinking of seaweed, drift wood, a harbour fence, a coral reef ...

Sea shore and maritime motifs are definitely connected to my summer feelings. The blue and greyish shades of the threads - in combination with different white fibers - maybe with some natural found objects like sea shells and drift wood - would most certainly make a good arrangement.

I think I would like to work on that.

(German summary: Ich habe einen ganzen Haufen Baumwollfäden in verschiedenen Grautönen bekommen - und überlege, was ich damit machen könnte. Ein paar dicke, umwickelte Stränge waren schon dabei - die hab' ich gleich zusammengenäht. Mit dem "Blumengerät" (Prym) meiner Tochter probierte ich einige 'schlampigen' Blumen aus - da eignen sich die verworrenen Fäden sehr gut - und ich könnte mir diese als ärmellose Weste oder auch als Gürtel gut vorstellen ... Zuletzt noch ein paar Experimente mit dem Embellisher - in maritimer Richtung. Eine Kombination mit weißen Fasern und einigen Naturfundstücken würde sicher ein recht nettes Bild ergeben!)

Black&White, Whatiffing 115-120

This time I've been experimenting with linen on woolen cloth (115, 116, 119 - starting upper left corner), linen on wool roving (117), wool and black lace on blackish woolen cloth (118) and silk fibers on the same (120).

For the first three ones I used the multicoloured package string for decoration, either punching or embroidering with it.

I think the surface of the sample with the red ribbon yarn punched to it (119) looks a bit like granite - maybe I can use that as a background for further Wiking motives ...

(I'll be off for the weekend - going to Vienna - back again Sunday evening! )

Embroidering and embellishing - and then off for a week!

This is an embroidery whatiffing on a Swedish medieval deer - I found a picture in a museum leaflet and wanted to try it out with the modern technique of the embellisher.

The background is again linen (or a mixture of linen and other materials, like for curtains ...), this time quite a rough one, punched on woolen cloth - then I drew the outlines with a pencil and embellished dark wool for the foundation - take a look at the lower horns, which I've left unembroidered so you can see.

I then embroidered three layers of fly stitch on the body and legs - one thick and one medium red thread from that tassel, finally a layer with normal red sewing thread - some black wool in satin stitch for the hoofs - brown wool in stem stitch for the outlines - finally couching stitch in green/blackish/red wool for the horn.

Afterwards I punched it slightly once more to "melt it in" to the background.

Next project:

These flowers are taken from pictures of Swedish carved butter molds from the 16th/17th century - I've stitched them with that gorgeous package string (see previous posting) in split stitch - accompanied by couching stitch (red wool with crosses in handspun linen yarn) and chain stitch (handdyed and -spun green/yellow wool) with green backstitch (here I've used green darning yarn).



Ah - and yes: I'll be off the blog now for a week - I'm going to Sara, she's invited me to stay and work with her - and I'm so proud and so excited, I can't tell ...

"Fairy Tale Castle"

I finished this small picture this week (19x20 cm/7,5x8") - it's an embellishing, embroidery, beading and recycling project at the same time, as I actually made the castle part - the one in petit point - when I was a teenager ... and for some reason, I now found it in my stash.

As I wrote in my last posting, I'm very keen on embroidery at the moment - but still I would like to combine it with some sort of recycling, and whenever possible, with embellishing /punching, as well.

I'm also torn between the "romantic projects" - like this one - and the plain, straight, modern - or medieval and older - ones. And I'm still very interested in that Wiking period ... I'm reading about it, thinking, drawing, collecting material ...

"Being a part of it" and some embroidery

Yesterday I finished this round embellished picture, it's quite big, diam. 43 cm (17"), consisting of embellished wool roving, pre-felt, cloth, yarn, fibers ... I haven't done any kind of embroidery or beading on it this time, as I wanted to keep it "natural" ... The colours come out a bit warmer in real as on the photo.

I'm much happier with this one than with the bird of previous posting - maybe I should just stick to my own colours in the end and keep it - yes, plain and simple!

But as I'm fascinated of embroidery lately, I made a some "embroidery whatiffing" after browsing through "The New Crewel" by Katherine Shaughnessy: I took a detail out of her patterns, simplified it a bit more, used other stitches and beads instead of french knots ... well, it was fun doing!



What I like about this book is that she uses modern (sometimes a bit "retro") and simple graphic designs with a traditional embroidery technique, which inspires me to draw some patterns of my own ... we'll see where that leads ...

Whatiffing 105-113, Dull and Glossy

Some new Whatiffings: these are different thin fabric scraps on multi-coloured pre-felt, punched and then hand embroidered with glossy silk thread.

(I took a lot of pictures of a new project today - forgot to put the memory card into the camera - have to wait for new daylight tomorrow ... it's one of those days. Sigh.)

This Bird of Paradise

I've been working on this bird of paradise lately - at first, not really planning a motif, just punching different red and pink fabrics and fibers onto a red woolen cloth, letting them blur into the background.

The left part was originally a blue-blackish fabric with a pink flower print, which I punched onto black wool and then added hand and machine embroidery to.

I sew and partially punched the fabric for the bird onto the background, forming the outlines while sewing it on, padding it here and there with some wool fibers.

Finally, I added a hanging which I made out of some black metal wire and I noticed how different a picture looks with some sort of hanging - I'll show you "My Grandmother's Garden" again, this time with the birch branch added:




For this purpose, I ironed on a suitable stabilizer as a lining for the back - it makes it hang smoother.

"My Grandmother's Garden"

Today I'm almost finished with "My Grandmother's Garden" - it's an embellished picture measuring 8,5x10" (22x26 cm).

What I enjoy so much about the embellisher is that you can use the tiniest of scraps to create a new piece of cloth and also re-use and present those very old samples of needlework in your stash, which have been carefully made and collected by women of generations before you ...

So, with this very modern machine you can assemble those old treasures to be cherished again.

I'm not sure if to add some more to this piece - maybe I'll go out and look for a thin branch of a birch for the mounting.

Hommage à Jude ...

Yesterday night, I sat down in the middle of xmaspreps and started this "Hommage à Jude", a kind of what-if-project, using some of my favourite scraps (and the Jacaranda haze-thread!) which Paula sent me recently.

I needed a break, slipping out of that Mrs-Santa-costume, and I needed to do some stitching again:

I wanted to know what it felt like to be stitching like Jude ... and I do now realize that you can really get addicted to filling the fabric with those running stitches - it reminds me of weaving - taking you further and further, stiffening the cloth and at the same time shaping and re-shaping the surface ... Through the slow process of stitching, you come to care about the material in a new way.

And I enjoyed the fraying of the fabric, giving the piece a worn and kind of weary expression. Of course my thoughts went to Jude as I chose the dotted fabrics - which I had asked Paula for when swapping. While adding french knots for the illusion of more dots, I thought of Sara, who is frequently using them on her pieces of work.

I'm pleased with this sublime and still worked-upon look and will certainly return to this piece and probably integrate it with other special scraps ... next year.