Happy Christmas to one and all!
All the module chaos has now been banished from the living room for the season. Have knitted this little chap below for my grown up son's stocking. He lives in a flat which does not allow pets and he is very fond of black and white cats. Hope he will give him a home as he is a little lopsided and a bit unsteady on his pins. Perhaps I'll come up with a little friend for him before the big day - I'm allowed one pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool!
a.The house and roof is made from fabric paper. I printed pictures and made the paper on muslin coated with diluted PVA. Then cut out bricks and tiles and assembled on handmade paper.
The result - though very cute - did not lend itself to stitchery - it just broke apart with a needle big enough to penetrate the sandwich. I had to think of another way round.
1. This is middle sandwich of the book/panel. It is scrim with pulled threads and two cords stitched to provide the robust decorative joins to enable the pages to fold.
3. This is the front of the middle house. The assembled house and roof was photographed and printed on to ordinary paper which I then crumpled and smoothed many times so that it became fabric-like and added a lot of texture to the images. The house walls are of books and the roof of newspapers. The garden has a path and a pond and the gates at the bottom are wired cord shaped as a double ornamental capital F.
No. 4 is a picture of the whole first page - but the camera colours are not good so I've included separate scans of the pieces for the colour. This is the prototype for each page.
The tiled roof is made from fabric paper I made using computer generated images of newspapers. It has a ridge in blanket stitch with perle cotton.
The house is a piece of hand made paper with applied bricks of fabric paper made from computer images modified in photoshop. The window has little twisted cord bars and dyed knitting ribbon frames. The door is machine embroidered silk with a cord frame.
The garden is on handmade paper with one of my grid samples applied. The garden path is printed handmade paper held down with strips of dyed knitting ribbon over dyed silk waste - edged in the same knitting ribbon and flowers and shrubs added with silk waste and open and closed french knots.
The back of the house is unbricked - not sure whether I don't prefer this - and window and door treatments similar to the front.
A back.garden will be added to make the reverse page.
Each page will follow the same formula - the colourways and garden treatments will be slightly different to reflect the individual nature of the occupants.
Links will be - tiled roof - tiles same size - just different pictures - but tone the same.
bricks with the same colour pointing
window and door in the same place on each house
same garden gates at bottom of the garden for each house
garden path in same place for each house and all diamond pavers.
The front 'page' will have two flower pots in front of the house made of buttons which will have cords coiled around. The cords will uncoil to keep the book closed when it is not a panel.
My proposal for an embroidered panel is a sort of accordion book which is in grid form. The panel is the whole book which will measure approx 16 inches long by 11 inches wide. As a panel it can be hung from 3 brass rings sewn into the backing at lower roof level.
The inspiration for the media book came from the photo I took of the little houses. They were lined up on a mantlepiece in a cafe we visited on holiday. I fell in love with them.
The embroidered panel will be of media houses.
House 1 will have roof tiles made from old photographs.
The house will be fabric paper with scanned images of radios from the images I made in photoshop for the media book. It will have a little grid for a window and maybe an opening door.
The structured garden will be made from strips of handmade paper with silk waste and knitting tapes applied as in the sample. The strips will be woven and then stitched to the dyed scrim. Further embellishment awaits the eyeball procedure - I am considering paper beads from the handmade paper or little lace flowers stitched and dissolved - or a few twinkly beads.
The gates at the bottom of the garden will be two joined elaborate F's to look like wrought iron - made from wired cords.
House two has newspaper tiles, books for the house and a formal garden in a regular pattern. The sample with the curly f's is a possible - but I'm also leaning to squares of paper with flower stitching with cords around joined in a grid on dissolvable material. The wrought iron gates will have the J pattern.
House 3 has video tiles for the roof- tv walls and a tangled garden of layered machined cords full of junk - the gates are broken.
The panel is joined at roof level and with 3 rows of machined cords.
The proportions of each house follow Fibonacci 3" roof - 5" house 8" garden making a length of 16" for each section of the panel. Panels are 3" wide with an inch gap between, making the panel 11" wide.
I had a lot of fun with the book-making. When I was dyeing material for my grids, I coloured some of my waste paper and envelopes so I would have some pretty paper to play with. Also used some of the computer generated papers and a few bits of my handmade paper as I do have a lot!!!
1 and 1a. Three of these are made from one sheet of paper, folded in different ways. Two little books made by folding into 16's and slitting the middle, the triangular book made using map folds. The accordion book with forward and reverse cut outs was made by halving an A4 sheet and gluing into a strip then folding.
2 and 2a. On the left is a flag book where the flags move in opposite directions when the book is opened - not entirely successful. On the right is a star book which opens into a star structure with ties to keep the structure tight. I like this one and will make a really pretty one for a present, I think.
3. The round book, the long book and the media house book.
3a This is the front of the accordion book showing 5 different media - newspapers, books, videos, radios and televisions.
3b - The back view showing 4 well-tended gardens and one junkyard.
4 and 4a. The envelope book - inside is a little book made from an old envelope which got coloured when dyeing. I cut out a grid for a little more interest. It is sewn in a classic manner down the fold.
5 and 5a My friendship and joy book - I used one of my handmade sheets torn into pages, sewed the first knitting tape to join them and trapped the other thread and cord with letters made from pulp, thin stained wood and monoprinted heavy cotton.
Had a go at hand and machine stitching on some of my paper samples.
1. From my research picture: tried to recreate the essence of the ancient script
2. Top - these are little pictograms - I left the ragged muslin around the blotchy paper for an archeological find look!
bottom - translating the very pictorial script and edged with an automatic stitch with altered length and width.
3. Used my f's and J's to create an ancient-looking tablet - (has a very modern pink plastic grid embedded!!) I made a long memory string in the sewing machine to make the script - first time I've tried this.
4. Top - this was the plastic embedded grid that fell off - I tried to shadow the embossing with stitches and added a cut edge held down with machined script - it doesn't really work - and the edge is too big for the piece.
bottom - Hand stitching with big elongated F's - tried for a layered look with depth and I'm quite pleased with it.
5. Top - lines of lower case curly f's to look like paragraphs of printing.
bottom - A pattern from my research experiments with J - I sewed on a knitting tape to edge that I had discharged for a subtler look.
6. A selection of edgings
7. Used my embedded leaves for a pictogram effect and joined 4 pieces with an insertion stitch.
More paper making for the grids. Had planned to do this in the garden and made the pulp the day before the weather forecast was somewhat better - best laid plans....!
Ended up in the kitchen again- seesawing on my boards inside a plastic box to squeeze the water out. The paper making does get easier with practice but drying room is still a problem when its wet outside.
1. Top - embedded jute scrim and I dropped a few different splodges into the wet sheet
bottom - a bit of silk waste trapped between two sheets
2. Top - This is my prison window!
bottom - I embedded a heavy pink plastic grid that used to be packing - but it fell off when dry - the embossed pattern was much more interesting anyway.
3. Top - The aforementioned heavy pink mesh trapped between two sheets
bottom - laid some withdrawn threads as a grid and surrounded with pulp.
4. Top - Used a round grid with silk scraps in a grid in the middle
bottom - fruit net trapped between two sheets - may cut away the protruding bits
5. Top - One of the drawn thread grids embedded - I do like the subtle colours in this one
bottom - it's hard to see the grid, which is a bit of cotton scrim pulled into eyes over a splodgy 'eye' background.
6. Top - Lime green plastic bobbin lace I made for a previous chapter - which has scanned blue again!
bottom - one of the weavings I did embedded in a green splodgy sheet
7. Top - Another drawn thread grid surrounded by pulp
bottom - the felt grid made in the previous chapter surrounded by pulp
8. Top and bottom - two with silk waste grids in the centre and allowed to dry with curves in the surfaces
9. Top - Jute scrim grid sandwiched, silk waste pressed into edges and the sheet dried after moulding around a bowl.
bottom - felt grid embedded in pulp and dried around a bottle to make a curved surface.
8 and 9 could not be scanned as they were 3 dimensional and have photographed orange when they are definitely red.
Again the very bright lime green wool I dyed and the lime plastic string seem to photo and scan as a greeny blue - maybe the computer can't do lime greens?
1. This is my first attempt at making my own grid - a little messy and if you look closely there are some elongated F's in there.
2. and 2a. On and off the frame - I'm quite pleased with this one.
3. There is a lot more green in this than shows up - I stitched with two different violet threads as upper threads and a green in the bobbin.
4. This was made on a round embroidery ring using fabric strips I dyed as the weft and bamboo yarn and dyed knitting ribbon as the warp.
5. Made on a take apart frame, so has a loopy fringe - it's a sampler where I tried out all sorts of needle weaving, wrapping and threading with a variety of wefts; fj can be seen in the upper right hand side.
6. Used cords and little folded squares of dyed muslin for this - sewed the grid and then skewed it by whipping a couple of the cords together.
8. This was done on Jute scrim - I buttonholed joining rings.
9. Upper - A grid of holes punched in some firm linen and threaded F's with dyed muslin - added a bit of depth with a fuzzy yarn sample.
Lower - I had some scraps of very thin wood which we use as kindling for the wood burner. They were stained and then I punched a grid and threaded with a glittery thread - letters at the ends and a trapped cord in the same thread in the middle
10. These were media inspired - motherboard in dyed felt on the right and a telephone exchange board on the left.
11. I cut a grid from dyed felt and wove dyed muslin through the middle row. The bits I cut out I sandwiched in dissolvable and made a grid with a few overlayed automatic patterns.
These samples are my experiments with grids. They are all scanned in the middle of A4 paper.
The very bright lime greens seem to photo and scan as pale blue - very odd.
9 This is the loopy one from the last chapter - the colours show better now I scanned it instead of taking a photo.
8 I machined in both directions and then threaded through bundles of withdrawn threads together with fleece and sewing threads. They make a sort of stylised 'f' shape.
7 This is a fat little grid threaded with all sorts of bits and pieces: fruit net, plaited plastic string, stuffed ribbon, machined cords, fleece, handmade cord and strips of fabric. The colours are actually much more vibrant than this shows.
6 A threaded grid with hand stitching over the top - deliberately fine and spider like in contrast to the heavy threading.
5. Some needleweaving trying to use my letters and research patterns.
4 A withdrawn grid with the threads couched down as a border of j's. Needleweaving over bars and crosses. Getting the weaving over the crosses took me ages to get right - I kept heading in the wrong direction and spoiling the pattern.
3 The back view of 2 showing how the thread bundles were looped over the bars.
2. Withdrawn threads to contrast and looped at the edges. Threads from other grids bundled and knotted around bars. It is not blue as it looks here but violet and green - though quite pastel shades, this one.
1 Lots of threads withdrawn with some hand stitching and machining groups of threads in different ways.
