I am doing a new 5-day workshop! Improvisational Stitching!
But what does that mean, exactly? Well funny you should ask, because I’ve given it a great deal of thought. Improvisational Stitching is what I call what I do when I begin with a piece of fabric, usually a piece of hand dyed linen, with no preconceived notion of what I’m going to do other than follow the striations in the fabric and begin stitching. I don’t sketch anything out, I just begin stitching.
This is a new piece that I haven’t had time to do much with. Right now it’s just a few stitches, but eventually it will become more.
Over time the piece develops and I begin adding other elements. Sometimes I’ll add other materials, other times that means painting directly onto the fabric and even over the stitching, as I did with my piece, Perseverance.
Do you see how I painted over the green ribbon floss and then covered that area with the hand dyed cheesecloth?
Eventually the piece takes on a life of its own and then it’s up to me to follow as best I can.
Olea began as a 14″ by 16″ piece of olive green hand dyed linen. I started stitching and adding things, like the hand painted t-shirt strips to the left.
Eventually it became this, which I titled, “Olea” but my friend Anna Bates called, “After the Wedding”.
Olea: Hand dyed Linen/Cotton blend with cotton, silk, wool, sheep’s silk threads, ribbon, t-shirt & cheesecloth This is my latest piece that I haven’t even begun stitching on, but will be soon with hand dyed t-shirt, cheesecloth and tulle.
Improvisational Stitching is so much fun! There are no rules, nothing is forbidden, anything goes. I absolutely love it!! Which leads me to the workshop I’m doing: Improvisational Stitching!
Have you ever wanted to create an improvisational piece, but felt too intimidated to start? This is the workshop for you!
We begin with a hand dyed piece of linen, loosely woven cotton or wool. I suggest starting with a piece that isn’t too large – say 14” x 16” or smaller. It can be a square or a rectangle. Choose a color that you love for the background. It can be any color, just make sure you LOVE it! If you want to piece a background together, you can also do that.
This is a “hands on” workshop, in other words, everyone will be working and creating during the workshop with me cheering you on. Using a wide variety of threads, and other materials, we will embellish with no preconceived ideas. I will hold your hand, encourage you to explore and try new things. Each week you will be given a challenge to expand and add to your piece. This is a dive-into-the-deep-end workshop. We will have a blast. All levels of stitchers are welcome. You will not be alone. I will be with you every step of the way.
Workshop Length: 5 Saturdays from 1pm – 4:30pm EDT
I’m working on a Left-Handed Stitching book. It’s a HUGE project, but I’m determined and am taking it one small stitch at a time. Yesterday I was working on a Threaded Backstitch and so I began to stitch on a piece of linen that I whipstitched some wool shapes onto. Once I had done one example of the Threaded Backstitch, I decided to go ahead and do a Double Threaded Backstitch. And once that was finished I thought – well wouldn’t it be fun to do a couple more, one below the other?! Do you see what I’m having to deal with here? After I finished doing those, the gap between the Double Threaded Backstitches seemed to be calling out for a little something, so I did what anyone would do, and found some beautiful Stef Francis Silk Chenille and decided it was perfect to Couch. Swoon. And then there was a tiny space at the very top and so I stitched a 2-wrap French Knot, which looked like a little tumble weed. Perfection(!) and that made me feel happy. As I stitched, I thought I could hear some Silk Ribbon calling out to me, so of course I had to find it, retrieve it, and use it, because what else was I going to do? Ignore the call? No, I don’t think so! So I made a little cluster of Silk RibbonRoses to one side. And that’s when it occurred to me. I’m NEVER going to finish this book if I continue to go down every rabbit hole I see.
Double Threaded Backstitch, Couching, French Knot and Ribbon Roses
Except it’s SO much fun to go down those rabbit holes and who knows where they might lead?! Some of my best discoveries have been deep within such holes, which means this book will take a little longer to do than I’d originally anticipated. Plus I’m using lots of photographs to demonstrate each step of each stitch and I intend to show how to end and begin a new thread, in case you run out in the middle of the stitch, as well as how to end the thread once you’ve finished doing the stitch. Those are a couple things I always wish to see, but rarely do in a stitching book and that got me wondering, what about YOU?
Tell me what you like to see in a stitching book. What do you dislike? What do you wish they showed? What do you wish they didn’t show? What about text? Keep it short and simple or do you like longer explanations and even stories? What else? Am I forgetting anything? Tell me. Tell me everything.
Often referred to as a negative, I’ve always thought of obsessions as a lifeline to exploration, creativity, joy and boundless energy. Being obsessed with something (rather than someone) results in any number of truly awe-inspiring things, such as these artists who carve thread spools into amazing miniature works of art.
Or Andrea Love whose website is filled with animations that she creates using felted wool.
How does one work through the fear that inevitably arises when creating if one isn’t obsessed with whatever it is you’re working on? I love creative, obsessive people (and thankfully so does my husband!)
My latest hand stitched piece began as a challenge for myself – Pick a fabric that is on top of the pile and do something with it. And so it began. The fabric that lay before me is a color I find problematic. It’s a kind of pinkish, salmon flesh tone. There’s nothing wrong with the color, it just isn’t a color that speaks to me, particularly. But I had set myself up with a challenge and so I was determined to see where it took me. That was in the beginning of November.
The beginning…
I began playing around, trying different threads and thread weights adding texture in the form of hand dyed cheesecloth, wrapped wooden beads, etc. At one point in a moment of desperation I took some pastels and just painted right over the fabric and the stitching. Gasp! I know. I know. Sometimes taking drastic measures is exactly what’s needed, though.
And slowly, very, very slowly it began to take shape. There were plenty of moments when I thought – well, worse case scenario I’ll just use this piece to demonstrate various things, including what to do when you don’t know what to do or how to proceed!
But I kept at it and eventually began seeing things I liked, as opposed to all the things I didn’t. And once that happened, I began to turn a corner with this piece. However were it not for the fact that I’m obsessed with hand stitching, creating and designing, there’s no way I would have stuck it out. This piece would have been put into a corner and forgotten about. I credit my obsessiveness, dogged determination and perseverance as the reason that didn’t happen.
I spent at least 16 hours this weekend analyzing and stitching examples of the Trellis Stitch. Specifically the spiral trellis stitch, which was one of dozens of stitches that adorned the Plimoth Jacket, a women’s waistcoat, made in the early 1600’s.
Photograph Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Another heavily embroidered jacket is in the costume collection at the Metropolitan Museum here in New York City, which I would LOVE to see one day.
While I have done dozens and dozens of Spiral Trellis Stitches over the years, and have used this stitch in a number of my designs, I had never tried to figure out why it was often so difficult to replicate, and to replicate consistently.
So this weekend I decided to do just that. I experimented with a couple of different ways of stitching it, how to best add a new length of thread when your thread, which it inevitably does, runs out, how to consistently get good results when decreasing, stitching in all kinds of different threads and thread weights, and I even tried my hand at stitching a non-circular Trellis, which I will need to do a bit more experimenting with before I am completely satisfied. I had to fill in the center part with French Knots because I couldn’t figure out how to decrease the inside in a way that looked flawless.
I then posted my results to my Youtube Channel: Ariane Zurcher ~ On the Other Hand.
As I am left handed all of this was even more tricky because none of the embroidery books give instructions for the way I finally ended up stitching this beautiful, yet challenging stitch.
If you’d like to laugh and explore stitching (or in my case attempting to) with silk gimp and the thicker gimp that Painter’s Threads hand dyes, this was the live stream I did yesterday. Warning: We laughed A LOT.
My attempts at using the crinkly silk gimp became more comedic than informative… However, I am determined to continue investigating this beautiful, if challenging thread, and what I’m able to do with it. So this is just the beginning. By the way Mary Corbet, who is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to threads, stitching, and everything and anything to do with embroidery, is such a great resource. If you click on her name above, it will take you to her blog. She also has a YouTube Channel, where she demonstrates stitches.
So here’s the thing… I am a designer first and foremost. I love playing with threads and seeing how I can use an unusual thread in a different way. My approach to hand stitching is from a design point of view. When I’m working with a thread, like gimp, whether the crinkly silk gimp or the thicker cord Gimp from Painter’s Threads, I am thinking about color, texture, and how I can use it so that it creates something interesting. As I design, I’m considering size, shape, dimension and how all of that fits into the piece I’m working on.
For my River Rocks Pouch, I used all three of these gimps in different ways. A couple of the shapes on that pouch I added gimp French Knots, which I love.
I’m off to the last remaining quilt shop in New York City in a little while. I’ll be filming it, and will post tomorrow morning. So if you want to come with me on my little adventure, tune into my Youtube Channel Ariane Zurcher ~ On the Other Hand tomorrow. Until then, here’s to exploring and stitching!
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