Shisha Workshop at the Guild

Last Saturday was a Certificate Course Workshop on Shisha Mirror Embroidery taken by Christine Bishop. 

The project was a tiny purse - of the folded-in corners variety. The starting square was 10cm. Christine, who often goes for pastels, argued strongly that this should be in bright colours. I had brought along strong colours, but she kept advising me to go brighter. I adjusted a bit when I got home, but I'm satisfied. 

 

I've used shisha mirrors before on several projects, but I'm not convinced I got this one in absolutely securely. Time will tell!

To line it I found a piece of silk left from a dress I made in the 70s and a partial cowrie shell as a catch.

I  spent a few hours more on it at home and I'm happy with the result. I love this pouch design. It works regardless of the size of the pouch. This is about 7cm square.

               

It's a cute little pouch that will come in useful to hold a gift of jewellery. 

A good, fun workshop and end product.

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.

B2B Bag progress

In June I set this project aside to finish the Mountmellick work from the March Lady Anne's Needlework Retreat.  In the last couple of weeks I've returned to it and made an effort to finish it. It is the fourth Project in the  Basics to Beyond course of the Embroiderers' Guild of SA                                                                                                                      I had always planned to add a series of round flowers in the centre of this piece - to echo the similar set in the Hussif from Project 3  so I thought the Dorset button I made as part of the Dorset Featherstitch workshop would fit in. Texture is one of the criteria for this Project.

I became a bit concerned with the extent of the fairly dour background fabric. I chose it for durability and blending with the lining fabric (as well as availability in my stash!) but began to see its limitations. I decided it needed quite a bit of sky. I began couching some wiggly wool threads I acquired out of curiosity from Australian Needle Arts then added some needle-felted wool roving. 

Next a patch of flannel flowers, giving me a chance to use some green seed beads from the Stitchy Box Just the Threads shipment my daughter gave me. As soon as I saw those beads I thought 'flannel flower centres'!

The stand of flowers in the centre gave me a chance to use shisha mirrors. I had mislaid the ones I had originally acquired for this purpose so had to order some more online - they are not in ready supply in Adelaide thread shops.   I'm happy with the results - and there are lots of hidden "j"s in this foliage to satisfy the requirement that this design be based around our initial.

 Above the patch of flowers I added a sheep - using some of the stumpwork technique I learned in 2015 at an RSN day-course- a felt base covered in French knots using six strands of cotton, blending two different colours.





No horns on this one - a ewe, not a ram.












I then went all out on the sky - filling as much as I could, using Bokhara, chain and reverse chain and a bit of couching of the wiggly wool. A hank of variegated blue shiburi thread came in useful.

I soon realised that I had a problem with the flowering gum tree. I either had to put in more foliage to provide a solid block-out of the sky, or I had to add sky behind the tree. Had I planned the sky from the beginning, I would have put the sky layer in first. The shiburi thread proved useful for weaving behind the existing stitching.

By now I was set to fill in the whole landscape. It took a while to finish the sky and fill in the land behind the trees. I did it largely without a hoop, so it needed blocking when I finished. I am, nevertheless, very pleased with it.

My lining fabric is a print of Australian wildflowers. It seemed a pity to only use it as lining, so I cut large piece, added a zip and created a pocket on the back.

The construction instructions were quite explicit. For the most part I followed them.  In order to make the lining more visible I reduced the turnover of the outer fabric, bringing the lining closer to the top of the bag. I also added a layer of wadding between the outside and lining.

I didn't manage to catch the lining in the seams of the false placket sides. I decided not to undo and redo them as the lining was holding the internal shape anyway.  The tacking, while it had provided excellent guidance for construction, did prove a bit difficult to remove.

There is a loose lining-covered panel in the base to hold the shape. I used a piece of plastic cut from a document folder. I also tacked it down at the corners to keep it in place.

This is the finished item. It has been a bit of a long haul. I'm pleased to be taking it in for assessment tomorrow - and very pleased to have learned so much about embroidering landscape. I plan to use this bag to carry all my B2B supplies and working project.

Gilaf finish

Today I'm feeling blessed by the talented teachers we have in our Guild.

My gilaf was meant to be finished with decoration in the corners of both the inner and outer borders. I found some tiny opercula to attach to the inner corners. The outer corners were meant to be finished with shisha mirrors but I didn't have any. Barbara, our teacher, had a supply but  I missed the second day of the course when she brought them in. I phoned around various Adelaide craft stores, but without luck. I therefore improvised, trying out a few buttons and shells. In the end I settled for some flat pieces of sea glass.

We collected these decades ago on the beach in Loch Ard Gorge, Victoria. The wreck of the Loch Ard, a clipper ship that ran aground in 1878 lies just off this beach. The beach was accessed by a steep track - so not an easy beach for casual visitors and not a safe or patrolled swimming beach. We found a lot of old sea glass - some with the rounded pieces from the base of very old bottles. Quite possibly the glass is from the Loch Ard.

I used five small, flat pieces in place of shisha. I stitched these in as if they were mirrors, using the Cretan Stitch variation with the help of Mary Corbett's tutorial. 



It worked well.

I had found a piece of Japanese fabric - silk as I assumed - for lining,  but melted it while ironing! I substituted a piece of pink dupion.

The work was, by now, not completely square, but close enough to achieve a workable pouch.  I had obtained some faux coral beads for the tassells and added these, along with a cord.

I chose, at this point to add in a little triangle (suitably rustic and - unintentionally - skewed.                                                                      This has been a fabulous project.  I love the result, but more importantly, had a lovely time making it. I have a much larger square of blanketing that I am hoping one day to work using similar techniques.

I am booked to do a day's design work with Barbara Mullan at the Embroiderers' Guild in June. Maybe that's my chance!