On the studio wall

Look at this, posting here twice in a week!

Here’s a look at what’s on the pinboard today…

The mosaic stars are still there and they are gradually being joined by a family of stitched skulls. I’ve been experimenting with digitising one of my drawings to create a stitch file that’ll be incorporated in some new work that I’m thinking about.

If you have used embroidery software you’ll know that there’s never one way to do anything. Different methods work for different source files, embroidery styles and outcomes. Even though I’ve used digital stitch in my work for a while now, there’s still always lots to learn and a certain amount of trial and error and experimentation to explore the potential of what can be achieved.

For those of you who are interested, I’m using MySewnet software and stitching the samples out on a Husqvarna Viking Epic.

I’ve always got a number of projects on the go at any one time, and I know it’s a bit odd to have these skulls pinned up amongst the stars, but don’t you quite like the combination? I like it when that happens – things that you’re working on separately come together in a messy array on the worktable or by chance on the pinboard.

There are four of these stitched skulls so far. Each one has been tackled in a different way in the software and given different results. All with pros and cons of course. Here you can see one of them stitching out on my machine. Please excuse the lighting on these photos, it’s November and a very gloomy day!

There are four of these skulls so far and this latest one is by far my favourite. It’s got the closest feel to the original drawing in terms of the mark making. Below you can see the original drawing and a close up of the stitched version.

It’s worked onto a scrap of vintage hand quilted quilt that I bought off eBay for another piece. I only have a little bit of this left so I’m really delighted that it’s turned out OK and I might be able to use it for something.

So, many, many hours of stitching this week, but I do feel as though I’m beginning to know where I’m going with this and how best to get there in terms of the techniques.