Sailing Away

Ok, so as it is after Christmas I have obviously finished my brother's present:

I am really pleased with how it turned out, especially the sense of distance in the water in spite of each block being a single shade. I will have to come up with another design that uses this technique to keep for myself but possibly involving colour of some kind. I have also washed all the projects I've been working on recently ready for framing, this project wasn't too bad because it took so little time to complete but the others were longer so there were some marks from repeated handling.

Three very different pieces. I will put up images of them framed as soon as I am able to.

Mountains

Having moved onto the mountains I faced the issue of what patterns to use. I needed them to be large, bold, and easy to identify, therefore they all had to be very different and lacking common shapes which could make them appear similar from a distance. I started with the large lace pattern on the closest mountain as that is very striking and I thought that if I used it anywhere else it would draw the eye to the wrong part of the image. The top edge where it meets the snow line is particularly satisfying:

It is very convincing as white snow coming down over the top of the mountain and I think it looks rather more complicated than it actually is. Obviously, as the front mountain this one had to be the darkest so the choice of patterns to use elsewhere had to be based on that. I chose ones I had not tried before for the other one strand mountain and the middle machine mountain and a variation of the first pattern I ever tried on the other. Expanding my stitch vocabulary is always a good idea and I thought that these four made a very varied group:

No one will mistake any of them for one of the others at any distance! I have also filled in the flag with silver thread to add a bit of variety but keep it nice and masculine. However I have decided to leave the sail empty. This is for two reasons; firstly boat sails are often white so it looks more realistic, but more importantly because it really stands out against the patterns of the mountains behind it and I like the idea of the focal point of a piece of embroidery being an area without any actual embroidery. It appeals to my sense of whimsy.

There is only the sea to go now then I will be finished. This simple, flat, stylised, with-no-shading thing is much quicker and easier than what I was doing before but I am very pleased with how it is coming out anyway.

Figure and Boat

Having finished sewing the pattern in the boat with two strands I started on the figure in the boat, also in two strands, but hit a problem. Looking at the image from a distance the two sections are the same shade and therefore are not distinguishable. It looks like they are simply two parts of the same object. The figure needs to be a noticeably different shade in order to be obviously separate - in the boat not part of it.

Adding extra stitches is the obvious answer but doing so with two strands would leave the pattern so heavy that it could not be distinguished because it is already quite compact. Therefore I cheated a bit and added an extra stitch to the pattern in machine thread so the overall impression is slightly darker but not too much:

The difference is minor but just enough to make the figure noticeably separate from the boat. The next section to move on to will be the mountains.

Next project

For my next project I thought I would go for something much more stylised to show a different side to blackwork. As Christmas is coming up I decided to make something for my brother. Usually I can't make things for him because embroidery is not something a man is going to hang on his wall, but the monochromatic and stylised appearance of blackwork makes it more masculine so I think it will be suitable. He rows so I was thinking I'd do an image of that but it proved to be a bit complicated sorting out all the oars, instead I have settled on a sailing boat with mountains in the background. This is the design sketch:

Each section will be a flat, unshaded single pattern but the thread will be thinner further back to give a sense of perspective. The only area where a pattern will appear in different thicknesses is on the water and that will still not be shaded as there will be gaps between the different waves. Here is the outline:

I made the outline stitch change thickness to aid in the illusion of perspective though the intent for the water is that the thickness of the stem stitch and the thickness of the stitch pattern will not always coincide. To create the exterior circle I drew around a bowl in pencil on the wrong side and then followed the line with running stitch so it would show through on the front without any danger of the finished piece having pencil on it. I have a good feeling about this design.

Bellydancer done

With all my new shading practice I have managed to finish the bellydancer's skirt.

 In order to avoid the problem to too much contrast I did not use all three thread thicknesses in the second stage. The outline stitches used all three plus breaking up the pattern but then I only used a very few stitches with the single strand of embroidery silk for the filler stitches in the darkest sections and none with two strands. Most of the second stage was done with machine thread and shading was done by breaking up the pattern. If you compare this version to my first try:

The second go is much more subtle with gradual shading rather than clear distinctions and a generally much lighter tone, which is what I wanted so that it would contrast with the dark hip scarf. This is the whole thing  together:

Compared to the rest of it the shading on the hip scarf is a little harsh but on the whole I am happy with this. As my first try at a full sized blackwork piece and the first time I have created my own design I am very proud of it. All my friends seem to like it as well which is a good sign, I must get around to getting it framed.

Present

Now I am sewing again I am catching up fast. Mum's present has been finished by filling in the gaps between experiments with recreations of some of the shading exercises I did early on because they are pretty.

I also used a little more of the gold thread to create little decorative corner stars at the top right and bottom left to unify the whole strip though possibly a few more down the sides might help. To be honest I think I prefer the first strip I did but I will see what it is like when I have finished it off with a felt back and ribbon edging. It is still quite pretty anyway.

So the plan now is to finish off the bellydancer before moving on to Christmas presents.

Symmetry

I wanted mum's sampler to have something on it that wasn't about shading so I had a go at symmetry. A simple Butterfly seems easy but when the wings are filled in with a regular pattern it becomes incredibly obvious if the two sides are slightly different. The general design idea was that it be very stylised and I included a little bit of gold thread for contrast since I had it already and didn't end up using it for the bellydancer's hipscarf - waste not, want not and all that.

 I sewed the whole of the left side first then used different techniques to create symmetry for the top and bottom wings on the right side. The top wing was done by recreating the filling pattern then doing the stem stitch round the edge, the bottom wing was the other way round. Neither technique is entirely satisfactory. Sewing the filling first results in exact symmetry but the outline is very difficult to keep smooth when it is done second so I would need to work on my stem stitch. Doing the edging first creates a nicer finish but a single miss-count has resulted in a slight difference in the shape which then becomes obvious when the pattern is filled in. The conclusion is that symmetry is very difficult and if I want to try it again some time I will have to pay close attention.

Finally

Having been rubbish about sewing for the summer and autumn I have finally had a chance to get started again and am continuing with the sampler for my mother's (now very late) birthday present. At the same time I am still experimenting with shading so this time I tried splitting the stitch pattern into two sections completed at different times:

First I did the basic outline of the pattern, shading it as normal where I wanted the darker and lighter sections to be. Then I went back and filled in the other detail stitches, also graduating thickness, and broke up this section of the pattern to create the lightest sections. This technique is definitely far more flexible for quick shading than trying to do it all at once and makes it less easy to miss count and mess up but the contrast is too great. Looking at the whole thing the shading seems too fast so there are lines of dark and no grey:

In spite of that I think this is something to have another go at anyway because the flexibility is such that it should be easy to correct the issues.

More shading

While I am thinking about the bellydancer's skirt I'm working on my Mum's birthday present. She requested a random panel like my experiment sampler so I will be using the opportunity to try out a few things. I have started with a simple leaf:

This was actually ticker than it appears because when I did the same exercise as my first try at blackwork I was using 22 count fabric so the stitches were far smaller and consequently shading was easier. To create the same gradual shading in the same space using fewer, larger stitches I had to be more subtle, using 3 different thicknesses of thread within the same section of the stitch pattern. I started by sewing the outline stitches, shading as appropriate, then added the stitches at the centre of the pattern separately. It is probably cheating but seems to work and provides greater flexibility than doing all of one thread thickness at a time then moving on to the next. This is probably what I will end up using on the bellydancer (I will explain the process with pictures in my next post as I am not sure that was very clear) but I still need practice in more rapid transitions.

Time to think

Having opted out of doing coins on the hip scarf there is only the skirt to go. However it is tricky because I want it to be as light as the skin tones but with very quick changes in tone for the fabric folds. I started a small section but am concerned that it will come out too dark.

There needs to be more of an emphasis on the lightest stage where stitches have been removed so I need a better way of doing things. More experiments are in order I think.

Gold coins

I have struck a problem doing the coins for the hip scarf. Although I have gold thread I am uncertain that I can make them look good. I had a go and this is what happened:

It looks a bit pathetic really and the satin stitch is very awkward on evenweave fabric because I can't get a smooth edge. A couple of practices later and I have come to the conclusion that coins won't really work. The satin stitch looks ok in photos but stands out from the fabric quite a long way because the thread doesn't bend, so it would get damaged very quickly, and I am still having trouble keeping the edge smooth.

The other two experiments are to test the idea of creating an outline and then filling it with a blackwork stitch pattern. They are more practical but are unsuitable stylistically in this case because the rest of the bellydancer is quite naturalistic and they are too stylised to fit in with the overall image. Therefore, I think I am going to have to give up on the idea of having coins at all. I will experiment with gold thread at some point and possibly come back to the idea when I am more experienced.

Deeper shading

Having finished the top I went back to go over the darkest parts of the shading on the hip scarf. This is what it looked like before:

 And here it is with some sections made darker:

The change is subtle but a definite improvement. There is greater contrast which makes the folds look larger and adds to the overall illusion of a 3D figure, though I think it could do with softening at the top left hand corner still as it looks rather angular.

Hip scarf 3

I have done as much as I can on the hip scarf without going into the corner.

The left edge needs to be darkened as do a couple of other areas just to enhance the effect of folded cloth but it is really working quite well. I just hope the same is true for the top which has much thinner shaded sections so it will be trickier.

Hip scarf 2

Things seem to be working ok. I had to unpick a bit of the 2 strand stitching I had done along the top edge of the scarf because I miscounted, so I am using shorter lengths of thread now to ensure that I am not encouraged to do too much of a single thread thickness at a time. Shorter strands means fewer mistakes.

The shading seems to be working but I will have to do a bit more before I can be certain.

Starting the hip scarf

I have started to sew the shading on the bellydancer's hip scarf. Since I want it to be much darker than the skin and the skirt to provide contrast I am using a slightly darker pattern and shading using thicker threads and additional stitches rather than removing stitches. I also chose a more elaborate stitch pattern to add interest. Here is what I have so far:

I hope it is going to be dark enough, I can always add extra stitches though so it is better to start out too light. As you can see the quick shading transitions mean that I have been using multiple threaded needles again.

oh dear

Well that didn't work then.

Ironically I think the original stitch combination was the best after all. I am still convinced that it should work somehow but I will come back to it sometime when I am a bit more experienced because there is a more immediate problem to focus on now. The difference between dark and light shades in the background isn't great enough to create the impression of fabric folds that I want on the bellydance hip scarf. I will have to break up the pattern to some extent but that is difficult to do naturally in small areas so I am going to have a practice run at that first.

Multiple threaded needles

I am still not sure about my current experiment but it is at least giving me an opportunity to practice the technique of keeping a few needles threaded and switching between them to sew small sections at a time.

It makes mistakes easier to identify before they become a major problem but the difficulty is to make sure that the threads don't get tangled up in each other. You end up having to 'park' needles in strange places to make sure that the thread doesn't pass behind an area that you are going to want to use.

Pattern experiment

I have started an experiment to test my idea about having a second pattern on the bellydancer's hip scarf. I will be sewing an octopus in one stitch pattern on a background of a different pattern, both of which shade from dark to light at the same time following the red line.

That all looks a bit complicated but there is some very quick shading that needs to happen on the hip scarf so I want to try it at the hardest level first. In order to help the eye distinguish between the two stitch patterns I have selected ones that are different shades and shapes. The body of the octopus is darker and based on octagons while the background is the large mid-tone lace pattern I have used before. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work that well.

Neither the shading nor the two different patterns are showing up clearly so far. I am going to try dividing the image into four quarters and using different combinations of stitch patterns to see what combinations are more effective but this is not looking very hopeful.

Back done for now

I have got about as far with the bellydancer's back as I can without moving the frame:

I did decide to smooth out the highlights a bit and I think it looks better now. The next section to move on to is the bra top but as I want to use the same pattern for that as the hip scarf I need to think about them together. In order to add interest to the hipscarf, which would otherwise be quite a large area with not much going on, I would like to use a second stitch pattern to create a shape within the background pattern than shades at the same time so that it looks like a pattern on the fabric. I am not certain that this will work and even if it does which stitch patterns I chose will make a big difference so I am going to do some experiments first to find the best combination.

Starting project

I have finally started the blackwork bellydancer which is to be my first proper blackwork project. I transferred the pattern to the fabric by printing out the design at the size I wanted it, tracing the main lines onto tissue paper and sewing along them, having first stitched straight lines for the edges so I knew where to position it.

When the tissue paper was torn away this is what I ended up with:

I decided not to worry about the skirt and coins just yet and will move the frame down and put in the guide stitching for them when I get that far. In terms for which stitch patterns to use I want something light/medium for the skin and skirt and something medium/dark for the top and coin belt, a distinction that will be emphasised further by using predominantly thicker threads for the darker garments. For the skin I am using the pattern called 'interlocking 'Y's' in the RSN stitch guide which is light and open in addition to each stitch forming a shape a bit like a waist. I have only done a small section so far:

The principle is working ok but I think I need to expand more of the single stitches into the lightest areas to create a smoother transition.

Summer bag

I have seen distracted by a side project. I always have a cloth hand bag for the summer and the one I have been using for the last few years is past it so I have been making a new one.

I used a variation on crazy patchwork and added some machine and hand embroidery as well as silver and gold trim. It is large enough to hold a pad of A4 paper. Now that task is over I will get back to what I am supposed to be doing.

Combination shading

At the end of my last post I questioned whether I could combine the two different types of colour shading techniques (breaking up the stitch and two colours in the needle) with shading by thickness. To test it I sewed two random lines of running stitch in different colours; the red line to indicate where there should be a transition from dark to light and the black line dividing green from blue.

Unfortunately because I didn't have much space left on my bit of experiment fabric by this point it had to be a bit cramped so the actual shading, which was the point of the whole exercise, had to be done very quickly. It looks more like blurring than real shading, the edges between colours and shades are simply prevented from being harsh lines rather than being gradual transitions. The over all effect is interesting though.

I'm not sure what I could use it for but I think I will find a purpose somehow. From a distance the impact is stronger than it appears here and is very striking. The only difficulty that emerged in terms of the combination of two techniques was where the red and black lines crossed over, shading between two types of shading method was tricky but I think it can be done. Whether it would be as easy with two colours that do not compliment each other as well as these two do is another matter though.

This completes the current set of colour experiments as I have run out of space, here is the full set:

I will now be moving on to my first proper design, the blackwork bellydancer I showed preliminary ideas for a couple of weeks ago.

Different technique

It occurs to me that I have been treating shading between colours as if it was shading between thicknesses, i.e. breaking up the pattern of one colour and filling in the gaps with then next, but colour operates in a different way. In silk shading transitions can be made by mixing colours in the needle, instead of having two strands of a single colour you have one of each. To try it I did a simple series of blocks next to each other.

This works extremely well even changing between colours and it is much smoother than the other technique. To test it further I did one of the shading outwards squares that I tried with black shading as it is slightly more complicated.

Even slightly more complicated shapes work with this kind of shading. However, it does limit you to two strands and doesn't allow for the change in thickness as well as colour which, we have already seen, gives a more dramatic look. I wonder if it would look ok to combine the two techniques with in needle shading used for thicker, darker shades and breaking up the pattern used for thin, light ones?

Autumn leaf

To explore the red/orange/yellow/green combination which has been causing trouble I decided to ignore blue and purple which are straight forward and have another go focusing on just those four. Given my musing at the end of yesterday's post I also wanted to move away from the rectangular shading experiments into something more fluid that would better reflect how I might want to ultimately use the colors and, since the colours are all vaguely autumnal, decided a stylised autumn leaf would be good. The idea is not to provide a realistic image but to shade the colours randomly within the prescribed outline. All the leafs I have done so far were basically the same shape so this one is different:

It also had the added benefit of forcing me to practice sewing gradual curves which I am still not all that good at. I chose the large 'lace' stitch pattern to keep it very stylised and used 5 thread colours (red, dark orange, light orange, yellow, and green) all with a single strand. Here is the result:

The difference between the light and dark orange doesn't really show up, I should have used a darker shade of green and the bottom left section is too light by comparison with the others but I still really like it. The lack of smooth transitions isn't a problem because the changes in colour are so quick that it isn't necessary and I love how bold and colourful it looks. I think I will come back to this when I design my first coloured blackwork piece.

2nd Rainbow

I have finally got around to going back and having another go at shading through a rainbow. This time I used two shades of each colour to try to get better matches when changing colours. Here is the outcome:

Green to yellow is still a problem. The only way to do it effectively seems to be to pick very light colours but then the pattern doesn't show up. Also, by sorting the transition between yellow and orange the problem has simply been moved along a bit to red/orange. Possibly it could be done if I bought a set of colours specifically rather than relying on what I already have but I'm not sure. I think to have a truly smooth transition you would have to use too many thread colours for it to be practical. But do the transitions have to be smooth? In most practical situations, rather than these shading experiments, you would want a change in colours to be noticeable. I'll have to think some more.

Green leaf

To go with the flower and continue practicing coloured shading I tried sewing a leaf. Unfortunately it didn't really work very well.

The central stem is 2 threads while the rest is done with 1 so it ends up standing out too much.
The way it was shaded attempted to show the way leafs curve but I didn't get the pattern right.
And the colours are too bright. In trying to make the lightest colour show against the fabric I ended up selecting a group of thread shades that were a bit too like primary colours.

On the other hand what doing this piece emphasised was how difficult it is to keep the pattern going properly where you are only sewing very small sections of a certain type of thread then moving on. The picture below shows one length of the darkest thread complete and I have started the next colour but discovered that I had made a mistake at one point and got the pattern wrong.

Where the two colour meet you can just see that a diagonal square is formed because I had missed out a stitch of darker green when I was breaking the pattern up. I had to unpick a lot of what I had done to fix it. In future I will use shorted lengths of thread when there will be little fiddly sections but I will also try stopping one thread before the end, parking it, and catching up with the next before moving on (a technique I have seen referenced but never tried so I'm not quite sure how it works).

Pink flower

To practice less structured colour shading I have done a five petaled flower using the same stitch pattern throughout. Here are the threads and pattern:

Obviously the outline is very stylised but I wanted a clear shape that could be made interesting through the use of shading. I used a slightly simplified form of the third blue shading experiment using only two thicknesses of thread. The darkest colour is 2 strands and the lightest is 1 strand. The mid tone appears in both thicknesses to graduate between them. Here is the finished result:

The problem with using a light colour is that when the thread is very thin the colour is even more muted and appears almost the same as the background fabric. The lightest edges can be differentiated more by a change in texture from the background than by a change in colour. I do like the shading within the petals though where the lines of darker colour come out from the centre. Looking at it from a distance the edges stand out more clearly and it appears generally more interesting than it does close up.

I like how delicate the very pale edges make it appear but I think using a slightly darker tone would have worked better. It is just going to be difficult to work out how dark the lightest colour should be.

Opposite shading

I kind of wondered what would happen if you shaded in the opposite direction, with thicker threads for light colours and thinner for dark. The answer is not very much:

but I suppose at least I know that now.

Blackwork Bellydancer - Design

While I am still playing with coloured experiments I figured I would start designing my first proper blackwork image so that I have plenty of time to think about it. I already have a piece of fabric that is the same size as the one I am doing the current experiments on which is square and about 14 inches wide. Therefore I intend to design an image that is approximately 10 inches square. I want to stick predominantly with black thread at the moment but am considering using some gold as a contrast.

I am a belly dancer and it would be really nice to combine my two hobbies in this piece so I have looked through my photographs to find a simple shape that I can take as a model. These are what I came up with:

The shape of the dancers back provides a simple but easily recognisable image and the fabric of the hip scarf and skirt provide interest. The first of the two is the more dramatic so I decided to start with that. I transformed it into black and white, heightened the contrast slightly to emphasise the different tones, then drew lines over the edges and where the most obvious shading should go:

To make the image stronger I shortened the hip scarf and raised the bottom edge of the top to show more of the back of the waist. I then created a new, square, document and copied the outlines across so that I could decide what layout the final image should have. Finally I blocked in some shading:

Cropping the image in tighter to the waist hightens the impact by emphasising the body's curve and I really like this as an idea. Gold thread could be included by adding some coins to the hip scarf. In real life there would be two or three rows but I wouldn't want to overload that part of the design so I experimented with a single row allong the botom:

The coins do add something to the design but they will also add to the difficulties in transfering the design on to the fabric so am stoping here and will come back to it in a couple of days to see what I think. I am happy with this as a starting point though.