Progress on Nicola's Bluebird

 These photos were taken late Friday afternoon.  I finished the gold area and his head.  I still have one small motif in the green area to complete.  

Surprisingly, most of the accent stitches have been done with the filament thread only, called Accentuate - used to be called Madeira Supertwist, it has some metal in the composition, giving it a sheen.  I expected to use one strand of silk & one of filament. Every time I tried it I felt it was too heavy for what I was trying to do.

His legs are outlined with a couched #7 Tambour thread.  I tried stem stitch in silk.  I don't know why since I knew I wouldn't like it even before I tried it.  Here's both options for comparison.  A better choice might have been to straight stitch in silk.  But, by then I could see this bird wanted to go Metallic on me so that's what I did.

 

Nicola has painted his eye in such a way that it follows you, like in old oil paintings.  I didn't want to do much to it because I really liked her effect.  I chose to accent it with a fine silver wire/thread couched under the eye and a small seed stitch in the pupil to add a bit of spark.  I'm very pleased with the effect (which I can't reproduce with my camera).  You barely see even the line under his eye - it appears almost as a sheen rather than a couched wire.




Since Friday I've nearly completed all the accent stitches, which would have been the end.  But an idea tugged at me the entire time I worked on this bird.  I didn't think it was practical (because I'm so far away and not able to see the purse pattern) and wasn't sure Nicola would like it. Friday evening I decided to email Nicola about my idea.  Her response came on Saturday morning. In the next day or two I'll share what transpired.

At this point, I want to mention how much fun this project has been.  I've thoroughly enjoyed breaking out of the mindset of using strictly historical threads.  Not to mention the mixed media aspect which has challenged me to look at my embroidery differently - in an exciting new way that seems very aligned with the art world today.  It led me to order two books that I discovered through Nicola.  New Ideas in Goldwork by Tracy A. Franklin and Contemporary Whitework by Tracy and Nicola Jarvis.  I can see that Tracy and Nicola's work will be influencing mine in future.  Oh! the possibilities that have appeared on the horizon...

The Bluebird's Sunflower

 I'm not quite finished with the green area, but what remains to be done needs a couching thread that I don't have yet.

So on to the yellow section.  I decided to work the sunflower "seeds" in Spiral Trellis.  It's one of my favorite Elizabethan stitches. I also thought it would be different than the French knots which you'd expect to see.  (These "seeds" are quite small and could be covered with French knots. I enlarged them somewhat in order to work in ST.)

The right seed is done in Soie d'Alger; the left in 100/3.  I don't care for Soie d'Alger thread because it's fuzzy and I lose clarity in the stitch, but it's what came in the thread pack.  I tried the 100/3 from my own stash.  The problem is the yellow isn't deep enough and I can't buy the brighter yellow in 100/3 in time for this project.  

The seeds are so small (3/32" in diameter) that it's probably a moot point anyway.  I can see the difference in clarity under magnification, as in these photos.  But with the naked eye you really can't.  It just irks me to stitch second-best seeds.  The color is more important here - Love the way it pops.

Nicola's Bluebird (continued)

Today I'm working the green section of the bird.  I have tried both 1 strand of soie d'alger (on left) and 1 strand of Accentuate (on right). Both threads are by Au Ver a Some.  

Question for you - which do you prefer?  I'm not going to sway you by  telling you which I think I prefer.

The blue section you can see part of was done in speckling with one strand each of d'alger and Accentuate.  It has great sparkle - almost looks like glitter, but you can't see it in the photo, unfortunately.

I'm off to work and will check back in when I get home.

Thanks for your help.

Kimberly

Nicola Jarvis & May Morris @ William Morris Gallery, London

A few weeks ago I received an email from Nicola Jarvis asking if I would participate in an embroidery collaboration project for her solo art & embroidery exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in London.  My answer was Yes! before I'd finished the 2nd sentence in her email.  A chance to embroider something to be shown in the William Morris Gallery in London?  Given William Morris's influence on embroidery - elevating it back to its rightful place as an art form - does one really need to pose that question to a stitcher?  I feel very honored to have been asked to participate in the project and hope I can justify Nicola's faith in my abilities.


For those of you unfamiliar with Nicola, she's an artist & embroiderer, graduated from the RSN.  Her bio listed on the link will give you an idea of her many talents.  I met Nicola when I took her crewel embroidery class a couple years ago at Winterthur's Who's Your Daddy needlework seminar.  We emailed once or twice after the class and then fell out of touch, so it was a real surprise to hear from her.  If you ever have a chance to take a class from Nicola I'd highly recommend you do.  She's a wonderful teacher - extremely knowledgable, but kind and totally approachable so that you wouldn't feel uncomfortable asking her even the most basic of questions.

Nicola was awarded Overall Winner of the WM Gallery's Inspired by Morris competition in 2010.  Looking through her work I was especially drawn to her birds (scroll down on the link to see the Robin and Blackbird).  When I mentioned that I thought her birds magical she decided to send me a Bluebird as my project. I couldn't wait for my package to arrive so I could see him.  I wasn't disappointed - he's delightful.  

Upon opening the package I was both delighted and intimidated to discover that my Bluebird is painted on Dupioni Silk!  It's pale olive or sage green in color - the beauty of the color just doesn't come through on my photos, unfortunately.  The color of the silk is   such a perfect foil for the bird's colors that I can't imagine him on anything else.  I've never stitched on silk before so this will be a new experience.  

  Included in the package are silk and metal threads and sparkly filament threads.  The filament threads are also new for me, but so beautiful that I can't wait to use them.  I can select from the threads provided or use something of my own and how I embellish my Bluebird is entirely up to me.  

I have about 6 weeks to complete this project and return it to England.  I'll be blogging about my progress so stop back to see how I'm doing.  When I'm finished embellishing my Bluebird he will be made into an evening bag for the exhibition. 



Best of all, after the exhibit closes my Bluebird will fly back to me!