I’ve been AWOL for a time as I worked on an online class. I have a terrible time deciding how I want to do the quilting on my quilts, so I’ve just finished a design class that may help me overcome that. It was a class from Lisa Calle, from whom I’ve had other classes in […]
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The progression of a design sheet.
The first three images show new additions which were completed before the embellishments on the last image.
The last image has patterned paper applied using hand stitch with a ribbon channel partially attached.
Once fully attached the ribbon channel will be further embellished with tiny seed beads.
It's coming together!
Accessories, embellishments, adornments.
These have been made for some time, all part of a bigger collection, the little silk book, the wrapping cloth, the embroidered notebook.
Today I'm assessing, assessing embellishments, wondering what other forms of accessory I can create to complement this body of work.
Remember...your stash can never be too big!
We've been doing a little design work in class so these sheets created a while ago came out.
It's such a good creative exercise to examine pieces like this.
They reinspire and spark new ideas regardless of your current project.
Techniques used here are transferable
Colour, theme and pattern may differ but presentation technique can be used again and again.
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| Curves, Still using the scraps from this one! |
Well here on the banks of the Great Lakes, we are still waiting for spring to arrive. I'm not sure how much snow and cold this girl can take but I'm getting close to my limit. More daylight has helped though, and I started a new sleep routine ...working back to my goal of 8 hrs a night...every night. I'm quite sure I haven't done that since the early 2000's so this ought to be interesting.
The nights I'm getting over 7 hours, I'm ...
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It's a hardback notebook today, one of these (and no, I'm not on commission).
I can recommend stitching into one of these books.
There are pages of dots, graph paper and other linear patterns which make spacing so easy.
The paper is very receptive to needle and thread too.
I haven't actually worked into this one for a while and I'm tempted but I must finish some other things first.
I often speak about how past work inspires and informs and consequently am a big advocate of never throwing anything away.
The books, ledgers, sketchbooks here are old, some older than others.
The red one for example was made 30 years ago.
These pieces and others are referred to regularly.
Having references like these is invaluable and I feel fortunate to have resources like these literally at my fingertips.
It's time to take a closer, more considered look at my current design project.
I have created and gathered a large amount of work and sometimes I'm blinded by it all.
Today I've collected a few pieces together for more focus, (less clutter) in order to move forward.
So now I'm digesting the information here, in this image. There's more clarity which will help the decision making and hopefully generate ideas going forward.
If you'd like to catch up on this current collection there are several links below.
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Last time I was here it was all about the hand stitched overlays.
Today it's two new pages which will each have an overlay too.
I'm possibly going to add more to these, that's why they don't yet have an overlay.
The embellishment here is all hand stitch, scraps of cloth and scraps of paper too.
You may have noticed a little watercolour in the backgrounds.
I'm not sure of the gsm of the paper in this notebook.
It's quite thin and almost certainly not made to accept wet media but it didn't ...
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Hand stitched overlays for the pages in this little book.
They provide depth along with space to add more embellishment.
They are yet to be attached as I have plans for fabric swatches too and perhaps some little buttons for the pages, all coordinated of course.
Hand stitched embellishments for this project.Yes, they were fiddly! My girls in class won't be shocked to hear that ha ha.The little square pieces are one inch in size, the tiny tag pieces measure one inch by half an inch.If you can't source pieces to fit with your colour and pattern choices then why not make them youself?
The design sheets here were created some time ago.Now they are inspiring this collection, informing next steps as I continue to develop my current body of work. The colour and pattern aren't what I am looking at here.Rather, I'm examining the composition of these large design sheets in order to feed where I go next with my current surface design explorations.If you look closely at the
This collection continues to grow.There are two new pieces with embroidered fabric inserts and a sprinkle of sequins.There will be four of these in total, two are still in progress.As this design exercise grows it is informing a new piece of work which will evolve in class. Fabric and fabric paints have been ordered!Now I'm getting impatient waiting.
Hi everyone. How are you all?I hope you had a lovely Christmas/festive season.Thanks so much for all the good wishes re my last post. I guess I was quite sick, a spell in hospital. Thank goodness for the NHS.I'm much better now, still taking things slowly under doctors orders but honestly feeling good. I've been playing with this collection, not strenuous at all ha ha.You have
Fifteen two inch quares marked out, each one has a scrap of paper and a scrap of fabric attached.Next they will be cut out and stitch added before they form the next part of this collection. Also here, little bits that might inspire this work going forward.
At least, I helped my husband design the pattern for Puzzle Santa....speaking of which...
Here's what you missed on Glee ...
read moreMore stitch has been added to the pieces from this post. Three of them have added cloth snippets with a tiny bead and a single sequin attaching each piece of cloth. There are plans for the other three. The pages in the little notebook have stitched paper embellishing each page. I hope to extend the embellishment on those pages too. I get a lot of pleasure from these
Surface design...paper doll.
read moresketchbooks, design for embroidery.
read moreRUG DONE! And yes, my first real rug hook in the books. Now when I say "done", I mean done hooking. Hopefully, I'll get the edges finished up soon enough. But to tell you the truth, there are so many ways to finish them, I haven't figured out which one I'm going to do yet.
That all said, I thought I would continue on with my habit of doing a self critique when I finish project.
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| Rug #1, Nina-Marie Sayre, July 2025 22" by 12", Hand dyed Wool on Linen, #6, #3 strips |
