Signora - a few minutes here and there

Signora - quiet escape from the rush

Even though Christmas is still a week away I needed a break from the shopping and cooking.
I sat with this lady and started bringing her to life. It's really quit intimidating as I've never tried this style before.

But now all is set up and materials gathered so I can just 'check out' of the hubbub with a few quiet moments of stitching.

Time out to slip in a Christmas Gift

I found this complete kit a my guilt's Christmas garage sale meeting.
Perfect for a first Christmas gift for my son's lovely girlfriend.
I used a light Polar fleece for the backing/batting. It's very soft and cuddly.

The Garden - Confetti woes

I had just about finished pinning the first portion when I ran out of pins.
In retrospect it was a good thing.
I had the rest of the day sidetracked by other things and when I finally got back to the piece (with a new box of pins) I realized I wasn't happy with the presentation.

The sky was purple, mauve, what ever you want to call it but it sure wasn't blue. The other colours   brought out the purple that I really hadn't noticed up till then.

Replace it? Impossible.
Conceal it? Difficult.
Alter the visual with more blue. Very Doable.
I spent an hour taking out all the pins and carefully rolling back the tulle.
My scrap bag reveal enough multicolored soft shades to fill the remaining empty field.
Much better.

Now I can go back to repining

And THIS is how I pin.

I try to put most of the pins between the confetti pieces.
Why so many?
There is a lot of vibration in the material as you sew. The object is to tame the movement.

The Garden

I'm setting my Signora aside for a bit. I decided NOT to machine quilt the face but to hand stitch it. To do that I need to restock my thread and it will be awhile before I venture out to the store.

IN THE MEANTIME

I had fallen for a Klimt picture.
It played on my weakness for Confetti or Crumb work. I had put those techniques aside for the summer...but

As I watched the snow fall this morning I decided I could use a colour boost and caved.

What's not to love about this glowing work.

 I wanted a large mix so I limited the size of the materials

And the colours dance across the background of this piece already.

Signora - Day 4

There were a few adjustments needed, some lifting and trimming of the hairline, but most of the day was spent adding some colour and contrast to the flesh.
I tried a few things, paint sticks, ink pencils but I ended with Tea, Earl grey to be precise.
The remaining character lines can be thread.

Signora - Scarf and facial features

Everything is placed and fused and the scarf has all the stitching it needs to maintain the folds as well as keep some texture.

Marking that seasoned flesh was crucial and I'll admit a kind of 'hold your breath' scary.
The face, fingers and arms have the basic lines.....the major sags and folds are lightly marked with a permanent F&P brown quilt label pen. They don't show up at there best here but they are clear enough for me to work with.

Time to add the backing.

Vecchia Signora tra le Viti

This image is another one of those that have haunted me for a long time. My original thoughts were to use the collage process but I couldn't massage it in Photoshop to my liking, or I'm still not wholly comfortable with the process. So my default method is raw applique.

Enlarging it and then tracing a cartoon and a second copy on fusible materials worked very well for the face and arms, but the head scarf was another matter.

For this I cut individual strips on the bias from a light weight poly knit. There is no distinct pattern but I hoped that there was enough interest in the design to give it some lift and texture.

 I fused a sharp fold in the material where it surrounds the face. For now the rest is pinned.
I'm sure I"m going to play with the folds for a while.

Christmas Wall Hanging

Some of these panels are hard to resist. This one came from a local show.
And just in time for Christmas.

The bulk of the background is done in snowflakes!

Now that it's quilted and after the binding, there are small lights to be installed, cut into the tree portion. Should be cute.

Quilt Interlude

Blue and white are my favourite colours for a quilt. They were also my High School colours. Fancy that.
Another donation quilt assembled by the ladies of my guild and now,  quilted.

Enough Cards for This Season

I selected the best of the paper printed images and attached them to the card. A a few were printed directly to the card stock.
I even included two that were printed on cloth!

That's done........
Still thinking about how to incorporate this.........

Lino Cuts Test Run

I finished 3 and 4 this morning, so after lunch I played with Ink and Paint.

The ink runs were pretty good so I switched over to the paint to get colour.

And........ I'm not happy
The paint is a different creature. It behaves in a much looser manner and I had some difficult loading the brayer.
I tried a couple directly to card stock.
Again not happy.
I can see the need for a bracket or brace for holding the lino block and aligning the card. Everything totally disappears using the heavier card stock.

Just like Goldilocks, one too little, one too much and one so-so.

And then because I love this fabric, I printed on on a scrap.

Getting Ready for the Season

Finally,
My board is cleared and I can get back to playing with the Lino cuts
Nothing too ambitious here as I'm still working on the process.
So 4"x6" plate for Christmas cards sounds about right.
Cloth or paper?
We'll see.

I found some simple line drawings on line. Just my speed for this go around.

Seascape Sample - Final

I must have played around with the placement of these two for, all told, an hour. No position was wrong but with such a small background the balance had to feel right. This is a personal thing.

As this was a small piece I gave it a traditional binding.
I enjoyed the FM work. It had been a while since I tried something like these two fellows.

Seascape - Partners in Crime

Here are the pair of Seagulls. The top one still has visible tags of tulle that will help me anchor the patch to the background when I stitch them down. The lower one has them also but they are white so they disappeared.

I had a request yesterday for technique details. I usually include the construction photos and for some reason this time I didn't. I guess I thought you'd be bored.
The rest of this post will deal with the method.

I call this FM Embroidery.
I always start with a photo sized to the dimensions I want. Even with the hoop there will be a bit of shrinkage but in most cases it's not an issue.
I trace the outline of the photo (using a light box) on a white, non woven interfacing.
Sizing it to my collection of embroidery hoops, I back it with one or two layers of tulle.

Once it's tight in the hoop it's good to go.

coloured cartoon

Colouring the 'cartoon' with pencil crayons aids in disguising the gaps between the lines of stitching. If you stitch over a solid coloured applique form of the picture it serves the same purpose, but I find that's an extra, unnecessary step and it can make it hard for the needle and thread.

Grey threads

It's then an exercise in controlled stitching.
With any surface, the direction of the stitching is important to get a smooth appearance. With animal coats, they have to lie in the correct direction.
When you use high end embroidery thread the gloss takes on a different hue, depending on how the light falls on it.
This second picture has most of the main colour of grey applied.

The finished birds are complete but still in the hoops.
All that remains is to carefully cut away all the interfacing and tulle. With enough stitching, the interfacing generally tears away leaving the tulle but there are always a few spots that need additional trimming.

I use the cheapest thread I can get away with as these guys eat it up. Using such a thin surface there is seldom any breakage. Some thread is shiny and some not. Shiny usually goes on last, over top.

Hope this answers some questions. If not ask away!

Seascape - Plus one

Apply some heavy cropping with PS changes this totally.

And then there is this route.

 

Seascape Background

Yes, this is just a background.

But for who?
These guys!

Finishing a Seascape

I'm not sure when I started this piece but it got put aside. For how long I can't say as I can find no photographic record of it.
I actually sorted and organized my thread yesterday so the way was clear to revisit this one.

So here's a photo... of the photo
I got as far as all the material placement and again I neglected to take a photo assuming it was already in the files. But no.
I added cheesecloth to the ground portion only,  using all the bits pieces left over from other things. Lovely shades of sandstone and browns.

 After committing to the full sandwich, I added netting, using two different shades of netting, white? and tan.

Finding the thread colours was really easy. (fancy that...an organized collection). 

Tomorrow I can finish the ground and move onto the sea and sky/

SAQA - Final

Colours

 

It's done.
It's over.
(Sounds like movie I once knew by heart)

SAQA Colours - Final Layout

A LOT of angst went into this final layout.
Pining and repining.

NOW...... how to attach................
I love the clean look of pure colour on the fabric leaves but I don't think simply fusing them in place is going to cut it.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
You do realize that I will have to unbind the facings to do ANY machine work........