dots and circles

i'm going through a dot and circle phase. Like the Midas touch, but in dots. Some days ago while doing some surfing during my morning coffee i came across this Photoshop tutorial for transforming solid images into dotted images. Being very clear and straightforward it had me functioning within 5 minutes. After that the difficult part was tearing myself away from the computer.


Here's another try out. The background can be altered at will so i went for gradients just for fun and just using the dotted images.
All in all this is a useful application for creating images for thermofax or silkscreens.

Have fun!

neki desu

s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g

Me too. Did some pretty serious retail therapy while, as the British say, abroad.
We are absolutely sequin waste deprived over here and when i saw some at a fantastic notions shop in front of Hags with Bags sculpture i went wild. Sequin waste, at last!
While there i also picked some iridescent sequins and millinery needles just in case.

A block or maybe less, up or down depending where you are walking from, there is an absolutely brilliant bead shop called The Yellow Brick Road . Their web page is nothing compared to what they offer in situ.
i'm not really a bead person but look at the ones at the bottom of the photo. Impossible to resist.

Then i found at one of the malls a heat gun!We're also heat gun deprived here.
Can read your minds- we have excellent produce, food, wines, cheese, climate...we even have computers( grin)
Went for the heat gun with the corresponding plug converter so that i could use it here.

The National Gallery not only houses a superb art collection, but also a great bookshop. Could not resist those two. But that's ok. Books are not shopping, but culture. They don't count.
What really counts is the vainity side in me that had to be gratified. Gowns and shoesies on which i am not going to elaborate. It will suffice to mention that a very stylish jacket-top was made of boiled wool. Plum boiled wool.

So, from now until Christmas i'm all set. End of shopping. FINITO.

neki desu

TAST32-34 crested chain stitch, Portugese stem stitch and scroll stitch

Catching up with TAST. By the way SharonB has moved to here ,guess it was the spam that prompted the move, oi?

Being such a Lusophile silly me thought that i was going to have a ball with the Portuguese stitch, but no the real winner was scroll stitch. i could have done it forever.
i'll get to the Portuguese stem stitch bear with me.

During the holidays we visited the Collin Barracks in Dublin where an impressive decorative arts museum is housed . Oh yes, that's where we were for the holidays, Dublin.

At the Barracks there was an awesome exhibit called The Way We Wear showing great dresses from the 17 hundreds on. Some of the dresses took the term embellish to a new dimension, so richly decorated with embroidery beads and metallic threads they were.
The fabrics alone were worth a whole chapter and the sewing details were intriguing and exquisitely carried out by hand.It was like the cliché phrase- oh that flower's so perfect it looks like plastic! You could clearly see how the industrial revolution changed fashion and workmanship and things have never been the same ever since, well with the exception of Balenciaga and a couple of other divine fools.

Shape and volume were created not only by crinolines and wiring but also by adding different sets of folds, pleats and tucks to the fabric without cutting it.

It wsa a pity not to find tha catalog in the bookshop. But i found a nice little book called Beginer's guide to Mountmellick embroidery. And coincidentally one of the stitches is Portuguese knotted stem stitch. Check out Search Press for this and other needle craft books.

neki desu

more ufos

Another one finished. This is one of paste resist backgrounds and by my standards a big one about 22x25 cms. The ribbon used for framing i could not resist buying. i was willing to make something around it just to buy it, but luckily it fit this project.
Also experimenting here with pigments and soy milk. The fluo pink is part of the batch i bought when in Japan and had been tucked out of sight until recently found.




This is a detail of the stitching and fabric circles. And yes. i'm going through a circle phase.
Coincidentally i'm also weaving circles. Working frantically because i want to finish all i have pending before Japanese class starts.

neki desu

Takashi Iwasaki

Takashi Iwasaki's page is a real inspiration for embroiderers. His work is contemporary, yet incorporates some of the traditional Japanese patterns and motifs. Stylized and playful the embroideries show his graphic design training. In his CV he cites he's an"art enjoyer" something that struck me as absolutely brilliant. You can see more of his work here and while there check out his paintings too.
Enjoy!


neki desu

finishing school

Been trying to finish everything that has been laying around because i have some new ideas that i want to try out.Amazed with the discipline! Yet there are 2 TAST to recoup.
This red one started out as this
It was one of the paste resist pieces that was then stamped using fabric paints. Now that i see the "before" i've stopped being sure of the "after". Then the color is a bit off in the after pphoto.Sigh.. Will i ever stop doubting?

neki desu

i'm back and look what i've found

This has been as the French say la rentree with all its connotations. i think i'll take care of a few things before i post about my holidays.
Firstly i'd like to thank Elisabeth of Quieter Moments for having included me in her Nice Matters award list. Elisabeth herself is MS. Nice, always helpful and her blog is a must visit for anyone interested in embroidery. What she does with stitching goes beyond the tried and true parameters. Simply awesome.

Then there's the Germaine Greer issue that sprang from a comment she made in The Guardian a UK newspaper and that Sharon B posted in her blog. Read for yourselves.
As for me i think she's missed the mark by 1000 yards. Either that or she's being provocative and after all these years that's a tired little attitude that we really could live without. She should honestly get a life instead of banging the keys of her computer in yet another "exercise in futility". And this is all I'll say because i really don't want to go there.

Please leave a comment after you've read the article.

I'll be back tomorrow with a cool head.

neki desu

we're going away

neki desu

TAST 31 -cast on stitch

This was a funner. i got so carried away that i started adding other stitches and i completed a pseudo picture. However, there are no variations of the stitch, just changes in the size of the threads.
i used very fine(tex 100) 2 ply wool, 16/4 linen, perle cotton and spun silk . All thrums from previous projects.
Two glass button studs round out the piece.


neki desu

on craft and crafting

Now that everybody is an artist i have become interested in the c word and all that's behind the DIY movement. Agreed there are lots of uncool works, but there's a lot of uncool art too. In fact there's a lot of uncool stuff in life !
What interest me the most is the intellectual backbone behind it and periodically i check around blogs and read what's going on.

One of those trips took me to Ulla Maaria's blog and her manifesto which i found thought provoking. Her blog too is worth a more than superficial glance.
As you know you follow a link ,then one link led to another and yet another and i landed in the Burda page. Well, in a nutshell it is a sewing page with free downloadable patterns. There's also a sewpedia, sewing tips and lots of info.
It's comforting to note that although you have to register to be able to download patterns, there's no copyright uptightness and more of a creative commons scene.
For all of you who sew, enjoy!

neki desu