Wolfman completed!

He's finished!! Finally, my enigmatic wolfman embroidery is completed. Be warned this post is very image heavy with lots of lovely stitchy pics!  I started him last May so it's been quite an epic piece of work!

He looked back once and then he was gone...

Gratuitous face close up. He looks quite moody doesn't he?

Close up of top half. I like the contrast between the blue top and the natural fur colours

Close up of bottom half. Furry, furry furry! I enjoyed stitching those furry toes!

I've named this piece the same as the sketch that he was based on. Here's a little pic of the sketch again below. I transferred the sketch with a light box and a frixion pen so the final piece is the same size, just about filling an A4 page. I changed him as I wanted when I stitched, and planned that he would loose some of his cartoony-ness and be a bit more realistic when completed, which I think I managed.

Method

I stitched on calico which is my favourite background fabric for furry creatures. For the fur I used about 4-5 colours. I didn't plan what I would use before I started or where I would use the colours, I just picked a colour and started stitching. When it comes to furry embroidery I find this approach works best for me. I just pick a new one when it seems right, and put the stitches where it seems they should be. For non-furry subject I try and pick all my colours at the start, but for some reason that approach doesn't seem right for the animals. The bulk of the fur is two threads of six stranded cotton, with stitches slowly built up, each stitch being a tiny clump of fur. Some small thread highlights in his hair and on his tail were done with 1 thread at the end as the two threads were looking a bit 'blunt' in places and I wanted his hair to look like 'hair'. His top was done with chain stitch to try for a uniform 'fabric' look.

Help! He's looking at me!!!

Upside-down pic of final hair showing overlaid 1 strand highlights

I started with the eyes and the head which I always do with a character piece. I usually like to start with the head when I draw or stitch, as that is where the character lies. I feel I have to get that nailed before I start on the rest. I start with one key fur colour and block in areas, adding new colours as I go. I'm not afraid to stitch over the top of previous stitches if that seems right. I think with fur you can be very free and just put stitches where they need to go! In this pic below you can see me starting to block out areas of colour on the legs. You can see each stitch goes in a slightly different direction, though following the general fur direction of the legs. This gives the fur a nice scruffy look, and makes it look quite natural. Scruffy is cute!

Fur starting to appear. Sorry for the bad progress pictures

I have no idea what the finished piece is about, whether the wolfman is running away from something, or to something. I don't know whether he's looking back to say "I'll be back for you", or "I'll be back to get you". I like the not knowing. I know everything about every piece of his fur and clothes caught in this tiny moment, but nothing about who he is or what he's up to - I love that contrast! 

Half done! 

Lessons learned
I have bad embroidery habits. I am not good at writing down my colour choices, or even keeping the little paper loops that tell me the brand and code of the thread I'm using. Normally, this isn't a problem for the little projects I usually work on, but in this case it meant that I had big gaps when I couldn't work on this project because I'd ran out of thread and couldn't get more until I could physically colour match floss in a shop. I did this like, 4 or 5 times. Hopefully a lesson learned now??? (probably not...).

Final thoughts
The downside to finishing this piece is that I have no big, go-to piece to work on! I loved working on a big piece, and the timescales involved didn't really bother me at all. This is the biggest, most complex piece I have ever stitched and I am very pleased with how it turned out.  I pretty much enjoyed most of it, though the blue top did try my patience a little as I was yearning to get back to the freedom of fur! Time to look out the sketchbooks and find another big project to start!

Jules

Brave little mouse

A lot of my sketches over the Christmas period have been mouse-shaped. I'm not entirely sure why my brain latched on to mice, but I have pages and pages adorned with lots of little mice with swords, armour, and even a few with surcoats and elaborate robes. Little knights and city guards and defenders of justice and honour. Yes, these are the kinds of images that fill my head on a daily basis...I just sort of go with it. In fact, I liked the idea of them so much I quickly picked one and started to stitch him up.

Little mouse takes shape. Split stitch for the smooth fur with a mix of greys, white and browns

As I was settling into my usual furry comfort zone, I started to think about how to represent the armour for this mouse. I could just stitch it, maybe even use some metallic threads, but maybe it was time to start branching out into adding other things to my work, such as beads and buttons. I've never added anything to my embroideries, having always stuck to floss alone, but this small mouse represented a great place to try some new things. Oh and it meant a trip to the sewing shop, which is always a treat!

I had a little think and thought that sequins could be used to represent armour.  I've never used sequins before, so that was a learning process, but I was relieved to find they are quite easy to use, and they layered up rather nicely like scale armour. They also come in just about every colour imaginable! I was pleased to get a few packs in nice 'armour' colour such as black, gold and bronze. Rather than stitching the sequins on with thread that crosses across the front of the sequins to anchor them, I used the anchor bead method. This is where you pass the thread from behind the fabric through the sequin, through a matching bead then back through the sequin to the back of the fabric. The bead used must be larger than the hole through the sequin, as it is the bead which holds the sequin onto the fabric. Be sure and knot the thread at the back after you've attached each sequin. This makes things more secure and means that a loose thread won't result in all your sequins falling off! I quite like this method, it was quick and easy and gave the armour a nice texture. It was easy to overlap them too with this method, and very little thread shows on the front. Here's a quick closeup of how the finished sequins look.

I love how the anchor beads add to the overall 'armoured' look

I quite like the sequin texture, but I wasn't sure about the shinyness of it all for a while, as I added them before I finished stitching up the mouse. Once I added more shading and depth to the mouse the sequins slowly started to feel like more of a part of the embroidery. I do like the effect and think I might use it again, but I'm looking forward to trying some other methods too. Here's the hooped up mouse in all his finished glory, looking cute but also a little fierce.

The sword was made from a tiny piece of metallic leather and adds a nice sparkle to balance the armour, another first for me! I decided that the mouse alone in a hoop didn't look quite right, so decided to name him. Captain Elgin just sounded right, so I stitched his name in a handwritten style below him. Now he feels finished, and the design sits very nicely in a hoop as well. I hope to do a few mice to try a few different techniques and looks. I mean, how about tiny buttons for mouse armour? Can't you just imagine a little mouse gathering lost and stray shirt buttons to fashion his motley armour? Adorable! 

Jules

A reboot

Getting out of the habit of weekly blog writing certainly makes it difficult to get back into. The longer you leave it, the more difficult it seems to become...and just how exactly did it get to be the end of January already?  I have no real excuse for my blogging lapse, other than I decided to let my blog take a back seat while I focused on other things. Possibly including desperate last minute Christmas present crafting, sledging and drinking copious amounts of hot chocolate.

The local park in all its winter glory

There have been a few changes in the Niche household over the Christmas period, biggest one being me giving up my beloved natural history museum curator job to be a full time Mum to my three year old. Not an easy decision, but almost a month in and I'm loving it and have absolutely no regrets. The outcomes so far are that our household is calmer, less irritable, more organised and much happier (oh and possibly cleaner too :). Another super bonus is that I'm sitting here writing this and crafting while the little 'un is at playgroup, so two days a week I get a full two hours a day of daytime creating...which is an absolute joy. I'm being really strict with this time and keeping it all for me, with NO HOUSEWORK ALLOWED. It does mean being quite organised, but I'm working on a few planning things to help with that.

The dining table, taken over by my laptop, ironing board, notebooks and general embroidery paraphernalia

Although I didn't blog over the Christmas period, I wasn't slacking in the making department. I made some Christmas presents for family, completed a few projects I'd been working on, started a few more, and even worked on some ACEO's for a convention I'm hoping to attend in April.

The 'in progress' pile. The little stitched armoured mouse in the bag is finished and awaiting hooping up. Will post some big pics soon! And yes, the wolfman is practically complete, just need some gold floss for his earring!

I even did some craft organising over the quiet of Christmas, and purchased some more boxes for my floss. Even just looking at those boxes inspires me. So...many...colours! I also got some lovely hand-dyed floss as part of my leaving present from work, which I'm carefully coveting until I find just the right project...I even had to label a new 'hand dyed floss' box which was very exciting. Please tell me someone else loves labelling things as much as I do???

*drool* my floss collection is slowly but surely growing

I also featured in my first exhibition, albeit unintentionally! In this post I spoke about the badger I embroidered for an Embroiderers Guild project about the centenary of the museum building I worked in. Well, the final textile book featured in an exhibition entitled 'Inspiration', an exhibition of work by the Dundee and East of Scotland branch of the guild. The exhibition was fantastic, and I came away from my visit awed and excited, and very very inspired! Oh and just a little bit chuffed to see my little stitched badger in amongst the other work. I'm hoping to join the guild this year, and I look forward to learning a lot and meeting a lot of new stitchers!

Jules

PS. I'm having trouble with getting batteries to last more than a few seconds in my digital camera, so I'm afraid it might be poor quality phone photos for a while.

New embroidery: Moon deer

I was so engrossed in stitching up this crazy creature that I completely failed to take a single 'in progress' shot. From the moment I used my light box to transfer this image from my sketchbook onto some calico I barely seemed to stop stitching. Even the poor old wolfman took a backseat as I was again waiting for some more thread to finish him. Sometimes, it seems that embroidery can be quite demanding!
  

I've just been letting creatures appear in my sketchbook lately, letting my pencil just go where it wants to, and that's how the' moon deer' above appeared. Here's some of the sketches that I've been working on lately.

Moon Deer original sketch - you can see I was thinking of a more realistic background at the time

This chap had a 'magicy' feel when I drew him. Needs more work though!

Cute family pic of forest beasts

There's definitely a theme running through the latest batch, a slightly creepy otherworldliness that I quite like. I had originally intended to get back into some serious drawing, and actually work some of these up as full ink drawings, but the first one somehow demanded to be transferred onto fabric and be stitched. I had no plans as to how I was going to stitch this up, and I didn't really stop to think about colours, stitches, effects or anything before I started. Now normally, this isn't an approach I'd recommend. It's probably not very wise to invest a lot of time fill-stitching a large-ish embroidery that may all turn out not as expected, but I'm a believer that no embroidery can ever turn out truly wrong. There is always something to learn from every piece. I very happy with the way this one turned out though. Once I'd started I decided to stick to a very limited pale palette, and the bulk of the deer creature itself is done using split stitch which creatures a nice, flat fur look. 

Split stitch gives a nice, unbroken look to lines and fur, but still provides texture

The grey threads also give the creature a  bit of a sheen which you probably can't see in my pics, but it's quite a nice effect. About halfway through stitching the deer I had a bit of a crisis of confidence, and wondered whether I should have started this piece on a dark fabric so it would stand out. However, I'm now very glad with the choice I made. The limited palette adds to the feel of the piece, and means you have to get up nice and close to have a good look! Obviously I added quite a few french knots, but I haven't yet added them up to add them to the french knot counter! Now this piece is finished, I plan to try and mount it on an A4 canvas which I haven't tried before. I want to find different ways of finishing pieces other than using hoops. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
  

I posted the finished pictures of this piece onto the &Stitches Flickr pool as I usually do when I finished it last week, and was thrilled on Thursday night when I saw they'd featured me on their site and Facebook page! Thanks so much &Stitches! If you haven't already come across this site, I'd recommend a look - they publish a wonderful e-zine periodically which is full of excellent articles and patterns.

Jules

The downside of good intentions

Way back in January I wrote a lovely long post about the cushions I was going to design and finish to go along with the giraffe, monster and fox ones I'd already completed. My target was to complete seven this year. Surely seven cushions in a year is no big target? Surely? Well, I've managed to complete...absolutely none...and its almost the end of August. I have done a little design work and cutting, but none of this has resulted in an actual, completed cushion. I really do want to do more cushions - I did enjoy making the three I completed, and I still feel excited about the designs...so why haven't I done more? Again, I'm afraid it mostly comes down to hand versus machine. I can handstitch on the train, and pretty much anywhere, so embroidery has been progressing a lot. Machine sewing I can only really do in the evenings, and I'm just too tired or tied up in housework! It's a lousy excuse but there it is. Oh and while the Olympics were on I did absolutely nothing but watch them all the time! I have been using my machine on my Thursday evening local Stitch class to catch up on some 'works in progress', so hopefully once that reconvenes after the summer break I can start forwarding some cushions. Let me show you a new design I have for them at least. I was sketching some dogs and this little sketch of a springer spaniel is just crying out to become a 'be excited' cushion.

I have made progress in some areas I have blogged about though. I complained in this post in April that I felt a little guilty that I hadn't really made a lot of things for my daughter. Well, a few weeks ago I had a sneaky day off and I spent pretty much the whole day busting out something for her, and it felt good. It all started with a new book that I got for Christmas, the lovely 'Make your own toys' by Sue Havens. 

I've looked at it a few times, but as I was flicking through it lazily one day I suddenly had a favourite project. It's called 'Lazy kitty', and is an adorable patchwork floppy cat! Here's a pic from the book of how the finished item should look. Note that my daughter and I looked at this page so much that it's already been ripped and adorned with a sticker!

It looked fairly simple, and after consultation with my daughter we established that she would very much like a lazy kitty, but she wanted a happy one, not a grumpy one (grumpy is how she interprets the cat at the back in this photo, whereas I think he is just a little sad :).

The pattern is not like the other few soft toys I have made. I'm used to sewing legs and tails and things onto a body by inserting the leg into a body seam and then sewing up that seam, capturing the leg. For most of the patterns in this book, each limb or part is made separately and then hand sewn on. This really appealed to me as I do spend most of my crafting time with hands and needle and thread, and it was a new technique to learn. Although I loved the patchwork look of the example cats in the book, I wanted a simpler look so I chose a single fabric for the body, head, legs and tail, and an accent fabric for the belly and inside the ears, and here's how he turned out!

Cuteness!

So perky!

Such an eager face, ready for play

I'd bought the main fabric, Lotta Jansdotter's 'Aneta Ironwood', a while ago just because I loved it, and for this project I thought it looked a little like scruffy fur. I even took the time to make sure the 'fur' ran the right way for each piece! I used a pink/red patchwork lookalike fabric for the accents, and added real soft toy eyes on a circle of felt. I made sure to stitch a happy face! And how was the cat accepted?... She LOVES it! He has been named Mogtog paws, and he is snuggled into bed every night. How long he'll be the favourite toy I don't know, but it does give me a warm glow to see her carrying a toy I MADE under her arm along the road. I can see how this could become quite addictive! I WOULD like to make her a  seatpad for her little desk  chair...but I'm making no promises this time :)

Jules