Stitching Hands Studio

Cross Currents Experimentation

I was trying out some more stitch ideas today.  Above, 2, 3 and 1 strand of embroidery floss in a running stitch.  I like 2 and 3, but not so much the single strand.

Above, something I'm calling a separated backstitch.  Perhaps there's another name for it?  I think this was with 3 strands of floss.  I'm getting more comfortable with combining machine stitches and hand stitches together.  This purple is a bit of chambray I bought today.  I couldn't resist the totally fabulous selvage so sewed it right on top!

More of that stitch.  Here there's a subtle color change from right to left as I ran out of the green thread and changed to yellow.

I also played around with block arrangement.  This is the hardest of all.  I've gotten some of the smaller units put together, but it's still hard to figure out where things should go.

Rosalie was doing a 10 minute consultation with everyone today and tomorrow.  Mine is in the morning.  Wonder what she'll say about this?  I decided to experiment with using the black and white setting on my camera.

The last day of the workshop is tomorrow. It's kind of sad to see it end.  Despite the difficulties for scheduling my life around this workshop, it's been such a luxury to have long days to sew and think about sewing.  Back to normal next week!

Cross Currents Stitchwork

I got some unexpected free time this afternoon, so another in progress post!  Today I was working on adding surface design by stitching by machine and by hand.  Adding interest to individual blocks before putting them together is something I've been doing in my work in Jude Hill's classes as well.  Here I am mixing both machine and hand stitching even in the same blocks.  When looking at Rosalie's pieces, it's very interesting to see how she has combined all sorts of techniques. 

One of the things she mentioned is to not say to yourself I can't do that, but, rather, how can I do that?  All of these things I've done could be accomplished by either machine or by hand and you get different looks.  It's nice to see the difference and variety though.

I brought home several blocks with the intention of adding more surface stitching before starting to join them tomorrow.

Colors in the above photos are rather washed out, but the colors below are a bit better.  I am looking forward to getting this piece out into natural light for a real photo shoot.

Tomorrow is a very full day, so hopefully I'll be able to post more on Friday.  More later!

Cross Currents Evolution

I wish I'd remembered my camera yesterday and gotten more in progress photos, but this is all from today.  Work continues; sometimes slowly, sometimes in a flurry of inspiration.  My Cross Currents class with Rosalie Dace has been a lot of fun and filled with inspiration.  She has asked us not to publish photos of her work and I've not taken photos of other people's work, but, trust me, mine is not representative of the class.  All the work is unique.  

I went into the class only knowing a little bit of Rosalie's work (from her blog), at the suggestion of friends in the Sue Spargo and Tonye Phillips retreat.  I knew the theme was crossed lines (+, x) and that was it.  As it turns out, it's much more than that. It's composition, value, color, surface design and embellishment.  Rosalie is a wonderful teacher and I find that I am listening to her conversations with my classmates as I work quietly away.

Rosalie is very accomodating to those who want to do handwork instead of, or in addition to machine work.  This was a help to me as I was itching to use my slow cloth techniques as well.  I have made many small units with crossed lines of all sorts and kept adding to them all day.  I have quite a bit of hand stitching so far and will add more.  I've used many of my latest hand dyes, some of Deb Lacativa's hand dyes, commercial dyed fabrics, silks, linen, hand dyed embroidery floss.  I've done machine piecing, hand applique- both raw edge and turned, running stitches and back stitches.

There are three more days of class and a busy week at home too, so I may not be able to post again for a few days.  I am sure there will be more progress when I do though!