Dijanne Cevaal Dragon Cushion

After working the Sentinelle,  having so much fun, and earmarking it for Veronica, I decided to work a series of 'Guardian' figures for each of my grandchildren. Esther Vigil, whose excellent books on Colcha Embroidery had been so useful for my New Mexico Colcha Embroidery Workshop, had told me she was embroidering an angel for each of her grandchildren.  This got me thinking.  I already had the Sentinelle, to stand guard over Veronica.

I also had a dragon, another guardian figure - especially in Chinese mythology, where the dragon is a hero with power over the water - so I set to work to create a Dragon Guardian for Fionn.

I wanted this dragon to be a hybrid - a green dragon blending to red-gold.

I used silks, some red beads, metallics and a splendid red glass bead for the eye.

I couldn't go past the overdyed stranded cotton that I bought from the Guild earlier this year - it has a dragon's name on it!

I'm not sure why I was so sure of the green on the dragon - surely not a hang-over from the Hobbit drinking song in Lord of the Rings? Maybe it was the lure of some bright green silk.

I found a lovely dark green silk for the plants and practiced my colcha stitch.























The background is midnight blue Madeira metallic  and I filled the spaces between with running stitch in stranded cotton.


























I had purchased batik on which to mount this dragon but didn't feel I had enough. I thought he deserved a bigger cushion than my half-metre would make. I considered ordering more but also thought he got a bit lost in the gold of the batik.















I remembered a large quantity of dark denim I had bought a few years ago, got it out and rather liked the contrast. I washed it and set to work


It is quite a different look to the Sentinelle but I like its strength and boldness. Hope Fionn does too!

Sentinelle Cushion

For the last couple of months I have been working on some of my Dijanne Cevaal panels. I began with the Sentinelle - for the sheer enjoyment of doing it. When one of my granddaughters expressed enthusiasm for it as it emerged, I conceived the idea, first of making it for her, and then of making a 'Guardian' cushion for each of my grandchildren. This was helped along in conception by Esther Vigil, who has made an angel embroidery for each of her grand-children.


The term 'sentinelle' relates to the English term 'sentry'. It is someone standing guard, watching over, guarding.

I began this one with the halo. Given the shapes in the screenprint, I looked to see if I had any round beads and found a couple of packs of heart shaped ones almost the exact size I was looking for.

Having done that I needed bugle beads for the outer edge.






While I was buying these I found the large lozenge shaped mauve beads that fitted well with the other shapes on the cloak

From the beginning I had the notion of using shisha mirrors on the cloak. The circular motifs seemed to cry out for it.

I experimented with metallic thread to hold them in. Somewhat to my surprise, it worked quite well. It took a bit of time, and required working with a relatively short thread , but proved fun to do.

I worked the mirrors in first, then added the surrounding spokes and the lozenge beads.
















Because I was, at the same time, obsessed with Colcha embroidery and Colcha/Bokhara stitch, I used the stitch for some of the embroidery on the cloak. It worked well for the long folds - stitched on the diagonal rather than the full length of the fold.

For much of it I used chain stitch. I also ran some gimp down the edges of the folds. This was quite hard to keep tight, no matter how hard I tried. I tightened it several times.

I also worked out colours as I went - working from a general notion of the effect I wanted.



The metallic mirror surrounds worked the same way - I used two metallics in dark blue and bluey-red.



I filled the background in using a black synthetic with silver - very easy to use and providing some texture along the lines of the print








I also used a very fine copper metallic to outline the facial features and more bugle beads on the head band.








Here"s the finished panel, being blocked, ready to be mounted in batik. The blue of the panel is truer here than in previous photos.

Once again, I'm delighted with the batik - from Crissy at Batik Fabric Online.

Again, I worked a border in one of the Kantha edges from The Art of Kantha Embroidery, by Niaz Zarman.

Here she is, very crumpled, in all her splendour and, on the right, with continental pillow insert on Christmas Day.

In the next couple of weeks I will post the other three guardian cushions.

Dijanne Cevaal Figure 3: First Dragon

I have found the Dijanne Cevaal panels so addictive I moved straight on from the King to the dragon - and didn't pause to take photos until I was quite advanced. I began with those scales on the back of the neck - worked in some of the SA Embroiderers' Guild over-dyed stranded thread.

I was really excited by the red-gold thread from the Guild's last batch and bought rather a lot of it, using a red-dominant with an open chain stitch for the neck and a gold-dominant in Bokhara stitch for the wings.        
                                                         










The chest uses a lighter one in a combination of stem and buttonhole stitch.

Some of the Madiera sparkly synthetic from the King's beard came in handy for the horn, teeth and claws.

I separated the sections of the wings with a couched gold laying thread and used a black/gold Au Papillon metallic on the legs and feet.

The shape of the two plants cried out, I thought, for needle-lace. I haven't worked this in a metallic before but found it worked up really well in green Kreinik metallic with stems in a slightly heavier DMC Diamante.

In the  two earlier panels I worked I largely ignored the screen printed markings on the background. With this one, I decided to work the markings in a variety of blues to give an impression of sky. I used a variety of threads, solid and variegated, silk, cotton and metallic. The tail was worked in red - with solid outline and seed stitch fill.

I liked the effect of the seed stitch so much I decided to use it for the background in place of running stitch.

I am pleased with the effect. I used one or two strands of stranded cotton, then added in some more between these using a metallic - mostly Madiera No 40.

The result is very rich and dense. 

Now to turn this into another cushion!