Take Two

I wonder what happens if I stitch the same design in different materials? How different will they look? Most often, I will draw something with specific materials and techniques in mind. Will the same design even work stitched up in different fibres?

These are questions I have often asked myself. So I decided it would be fun to try it.

Two embroidery designs using the same elements, but arranged differently to give two very different looks.

I will be teaching an embroidery retreat in Potsdam with Creative Experiences this coming August, and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out this idea.

Sketching up ideas is always fun, and for this project, the challenge was to come up with two designs, both of which use the same elements: the same flowers and the same bird, but arranged very differently. The arrangement alone has made them look quite different.

I have already stitched one version in wool. You may have seen snippets of this one on my Social media (Instagram or Facebook].

Take Two, version One. A traditional Tree of Life style crewel embroidery design with a bird among the fanciful flowers and foliage.

I am about to start the second version. This time, embroidering with stranded silk. That first step alone, picking the colours, was trickier than I had expected. I am using both wool and silk from Au ver a Soie for these projects, and had thought it would be easy to convert the wool colours to silk.

But no, it took a little more effort. Which is fine - I love playing with colours. Wool and silk take dyes differently, and there is quite a difference in appearance to think about; silk is shiny and reflective, and wool is matte. The lovely people at Au ver a Soie matched the wool colours nicely, but I still had to make a few adjustments to get my palette of colours work together for this project.

I am happy with the selection I now have, ready to go.

The next step was the fabric for the silk version. The crewel embroidery design is stitched onto taupe linen twill. The twill that I use is a little different to the twill often found in crewel embroidery kits. It is a bit softer to the touch, but what I really love about it is the colour. It has a lovely, warm tint to it.

I had planned to use a natural coloured linen/cotton blend for the silk embroidery. The fabric I use regularly can vary a bit in colour from one batch to the next, and the bolt that arrived was much darker and more ‘rough linen’ coloured than the piece I had in my stash. At first, I wasn’t too sure about it. It has now been lying on my worktable with the silks on top for a week. The more I look at it, the more I like the contrast between the ‘rough’ linen look and the pretty, shiny threads.

… So today is the day; I am going to get the design transferred, the fabric framed up and start stitching.

First things first.

I will be embroidering the second version of the design using the silk threads, and I prefer to use a single strand so it will be much, much finer than the wool. So, before I can start, I need to resize the design to suit the much finer silk threads.

To double-check that the size was right, I figured I should probably do a quick little test. The stripy leaves proved to be perfect for that, right down to the number of stripes!

With that done and after a few minor adjustments, I have the line drawing ready to go. One of the things I love about this linen fabric is its beautiful, dense weave, which holds embroidery perfectly. But that also creates a challenge when transferring embroidery designs. I prefer to direct transfer my designs, but seeing through this fabric is so hard!

I wouldn’t be able to do it without my fabulous lightbox.

So here I am, excited and ready to stitch…

…only to realise all my frames are busy with other work (clearly I need to finish a thing or two!) Sigh!

I do have a large hoop, I could use, but I do prefer to have my fabric framed up square. So I will wait, finish another project, or more likely, get another frame.

Until next time…