Tag Archives: embroidery

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Book review: The Pigment Trail

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cover of The Pigment Trail
The Pigment Trail: a feast for the eyes

The Pigment Trail by Debra Luker

After spending some time in India, Debra Luker has collected her inspirations, sketchbooks, and art into The Pigment Trail. Just flipping through the book is a feast for the eyes, as huge two page spreads full of color and texture abound in the book. The colors are a part of \Indian life, and, as Luker explains, change with contrasting elements (a person wearing yellow walking past a vibrant blue wall), the time of day and the lighting, and wear over time. The same image moves and changes as you watch it.

The subjects of the photographs range from miniature drawings posed with flower to huge street scenes of active daily life. And, of course, both the textural and color elements include textiles, hand dyed, with zips of lace and gold work, of brocades and beads.

This is not a how to book, however. While Luker talks of dying fabrics, instructions are not given. Most of the book, in fact, is very lacking in text at all. Instead, we are shown the authors sketchbooks and the real life Indian inspirations for them.

While it is an amazing work while reading it, it lacks the substance that would make a technician return to it. While it inspired me to retake up an embroidery sketchbook, want to design a peacock feather piece, and to look up Zardozi embroidery (Indian metal work), I would only recommend it as a gorgeous coffee table book or requesting it from your local library.

The Pigment Trail: a delight to look at

Quick Fabric Blog

Quick Fabric Blogs: The earliest of the early

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Last week we talked a little about how humans have been adorning their bodies with various coverings. This week we will start to discuss the different types of coverings humans started to develop.

As far as archaeologists have been able to figure out so far (giving hard answers to such things is pretty impossible, especially as textiles and coverings are so hard to find intact in the archaeological record),   the earliest materials our ancestors used would have been long grasses, large leaves, fur, leather, and sinew. The very first non decorative items humans made out of these materials were likely shoes and carrying items. You can probably imagine how to tie leaves around your feet or even wrap food in leaves to make it easier to carry and stop it from decaying quite as quickly.

It’s also easy to imagine our ancestors carefully removing all the edible flesh from the animals they killed to eat. Scrapers have been found nearly everywhere, proving that early people were cleaning the skins of animals thoroughly. As untreated skins become hard and rot, but chemically altered skins do not, it probably didn’t take long for people to realize that using a common product all humans carried with them (urine) and working the skin to keep it flexible while it was curing, and people had fur: to line sleeping areas, tie to their feet, use as decoration, create bags to carry things in, form walls to block sun and wind, and bundle up in as it got cold. Making leather was simply scraping the fur off the other side.

Internal organs of animals also found uses not as food. Bladders were easy to hold liquid in when clean (and formed early balls for play when filled with air), and the tendons and the ‘silverskin’ of the animals, which were not very edible, were treated much as the skins were. They were cleaned and dried and them pounded until they were flexible and stringy. Between this sinew (which we still use today) and naturally forming vegetation, people were able to create items that could be shaped permanently or made into larger items by using sinew to stitch (the earliest needed found to date is 30000 years old) several pieces of fur or leather together. Knowing how much humans like to decorate ourselves, many archaeologists are sure these items were held together with rudimentary embroidery stitches and decorative items.

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Holiday Angel for a quick stitch

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Every once in a while, you need a homemade present you hadn’t thought of. It’s the realization that the holiday is closer than is appears, or that there will be an extra at a gift exchange, or that there’s a party you were just invited to. And people the people who we are, we often want to embroider one.

That’s where this little angel comes in.

I think she is really cute!

A simple little dear made with bits you probably already have at home, that you’ve kept because they will be useful some day!

And today is that day! 🙂

This is my little angel made with red, gold and brown floss, and beads on natural colored felts. I stitched a face on her.

no face, halo!

This is the same angel with different stitches and colored felts, and with a halo instead of a face. I forgot her face! And she’s still cute.

Denim angel!

And this one is actually made of old jeans off the scrap pile and Kreinik metals from the San Francisco School of Needlework and Design’s Burlesque Challenge.

I think she’d look best with both a face and a halo, but she is cute no matter what.
What you’d need for each angel is scraps of thread and felt (or anything that would not unravel too easily), anything you’d want to embellish with (ribbon, metals, beads), and of course, your needles and scissors and ‘regular stitching supplies’. And the pattern that is included below. You will want two of each pattern cut, to cover your stitching, unless you are in a real rush.

Just choose your favorite border stitches and go to town, embellishing until you are out of time. Stitch the two wings and bodies and faces together (if you have two faces) with a button hole stitch, and assemble with the face on the dress and dress over the wings with the hanger between the body and wings. And you are done.
If there is any interest, or even if there is not, I may get a full PDF together with how to do these angels.

Angel in pieces!

Happy Holidays! And Happy Stitching!

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Symbolism in Needlework compilation

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Sometimes when I am designing a piece, no matter how big or small it may be, I want to include some symbolism. Either as a special meaning, an inside joke, or merely to continue a tradition that has spanned millennia of embroidery, I want the item I am stitching to just say something *more*.

What I have had to help me in this has been volumes of mythology, the internet, and notes on little scraps of paper. But that has meant I spend more time looking for my notes or relooking on the internet for information I have already collected. I actually just did a ‘files that contain the word’ search in order to find some notes while writing this blog post.

So, here is a work in progress of thoughts I may want to symbolize in my stitching, compiled over years of studying embroidery and art, and far from complete. So if you also want to add a concept or a deeper meaning to your work, this will be at least a good place to start looking.
If there is a concept I have not yet touched on, please let me know. This is a work in progress and certainly not a finished collection.

 

Authority: staff

Beauty:  rose, shell

Betrothal: clasped hands, red carnation, ring

Blindness: beetle

Charity: bread, child, cornucopia, dove, fruit, heart, hen, lamb, lioness, pelican, phoenix, hen, stag

Cleverness: cat, serpent, squirrel

Compassion: milk

Courage: bees, eagle, leopard, lion, salamander, thyme, edelweiss

Cruelty: Bear, crab

The Dead: cherries, cherry trees

Death: crow, swan (good death), primrose (early death), butterfly (early death)

Deceit: cat, crab, daisy, duck

Devil: locust, dragon, serpent, pig, frog, goat, leopard, monkey/ape, owl, toad

Devotion: candle

Diligence: Bees, ants, human arms, chair, dolphin

Discipline: valerian (readiness), scythe, spider

Eternity: circle

Evil: crow, dragon, fly

Fertility: barley, cornucopia, lotus, strawberry

Friendship: basket of flowers, forget-me-not, garland of roses

Gentle: hare, hart, lamb

Gluttony: pig

Goal: castle

Gossip: parrot

Grace: swan

Greed: toad

Grief: anemone, tomb, urn, weeping willow

Happiness: basket of fruit, cherries, butterflies, holly

Health: cornucopia, basket of fruit, caduceus, cherry tree

Honor: Hyssop, anvil, castle, crescent moon (hope for)

Hope: bees, birdcage, crow, holly, anchor, bread and wine, crown, fish, lion, phoenix, rainbow, scallop shell, ship

Hospitality: candle, chair, pineapple, table, bread, wine, apple, barrel

Humility: donkey, camel, daisy, dove, lamb, ox, violet

Ill temper: bear

Immortality: phoenix, peacock, ivy, kingfisher, milk, pomegranate, scallop

Innocence: crown, flowers, garland, lily, strawberry, violet, lamb, child

Jealousy: crocodile, rat

Justice: lion, scepter, thunderbolt, scales

Knowledge: fountain, key, sun

Lazy: monkey/ape, snail

Liberty: butterfly, cat, hawk, bell, fish, wings

Life: fountain, water, well

Life after death: barley, pair of birds, butterfly, phoenix, wheat, corn, holly, ivy, lizard, octagon

Longevity: trees, apple, pine, oak, basket of flowers, deer, dove, elephant, hare, knot, marigold, stork, tortoise/turtle

Love: bird, bows and ribbons, dolphin, apple, basket of fruit or flowers, birds, carnation, heart, shell, swan, rose, tulip

Loyalty: dog, dove, anchor, elephant, goose, forget-me-not, kingfisher, key, pine, ivy, swan, violet, cumin, ring

Luck: clover, horseshoe, ship, vase of carnations, crow (bad), peacock (bad)

Lust: monkey/ape, toad

Marriage: clasped hands, dove, pair of ducks, ship, geese

Masculinity: horse

Melancholy: violet

Metamorphosis: caterpillar, butterfly

Mischief: squirrel

Moderation: clock

Mortality scissors (open)

Motherhood: basket, beehive, pink carnations, cow

Old age: grasshopper, oak tree

Overcoming trials: Acanthus, heron

Patience: donkey, ox, ram, rose

Peace: kingfisher, olive, apple, caduceus, cornucopia, elephant, flowers, lion & lamb, rainbow, instruments

Perfection: circle

Perseverance: ram, bee, cock, camel, hawk

Playfulness: butterfly

Pleasure: butterfly, moth

Power: bull

Pride: cock, falcon, hart, horse, mirror, ox

Prosperity: acorn, fruit, olive, pomegranate, moth (destruction of)

Protection: iris, thistle, woodpecker

Prudence: camel, hedgehog, anchor, deer, dolphin, elephant

Purity: iris, lamb, lily, peacock, harp, hart, lily, marigold, stork, strawberry, unicorn, milkmaid

Resurrection: lizard, swallow

Salvation: dolphin, well

Selflessness: bees

Self Reliance: acorn, duck

Servitude: chain

Sobriety/temperance: bees, camel, clock, elephant

Solitude: crow, hart

Straightforwardness: bull

Stealth: cat

Strength: acorn, bull olive, pillar (support)

Stubbornness: donkey, turtle (good)

Stupidity: donkey

Trust: robin

Truth: bell, lamp, well, heart, lozenge, raven

Vanity: mermaid, mirror, peacock, poppy (all looks, no value)

Vengeance: bear

Victory: garland

Watchfulness: candle, cock, griffin, dog, dragon, goose, hare, lion, peacock, weathercock

Wisdom: bees, book, lamp, lion, owl, serpent, elephant, fox,

Women: pincushion (virtuous), vase

Youth: primrose, sun, lamb