An Antique Collar, French Knots and Needle Felting

I have almost completed a piece of work I've had on the go for what seems like years - it just needs to be stretched and framed now.  The work is part of the decay and repair project I'm working on and it started life as a very badly damaged antique lace collar.  

Using a muslin background I needle-felted into some of the holes and embroidered around them with French knots, trying to create a drifting feeling of on-going repairs - I wanted to create a feeling of 'preciousness', and to capture the love and care that goes into preserving and restoring a treasured possession. 

 I simply had to photograph it with a moth - I love the idea that the beautiful and tiny moth caused such decay in the first place!  I now need to stretch and frame the embroidery - I am hoping to organize an exhibition around this theme of decay and repair in the new year - fingers crossed!
  
I also photographed some moths from my much treasured and very old collection as part of the same theme.

I am linking up with Mary over at Mosaic Monday.

Decay and Repair

 Since last week I have managed to make another six index cards for the ICAD challenge and I have been keeping to the theme of decay and repair. I have used some odds and ends of antique lace that are badly in need of repair and put them together with moth images and hand embroidery.  For anyone that is interested I have some more photos on this project on my previous blog post. 

I am sharing what's on my work desk for WOYWW over at Julia's Stamping Ground.

THE BEAUTY OF MOTHS

I really do adore moths!  Many moons ago when I was doing my art degree at Winchester School of Art, I found a beautiful Victorian moth and butterfly collection in an old antique shop.  A sizable portion of my student loan was used to purchase the boxes and I've been in love with them ever since.  The moths have been used for many art projects and have  regularly been taken out, pinned, photographed, cut up, had holes put in the wings, had wings ripped off and so on... I've definitely had my money's worth out of them!

I am currently working on ideas surrounding decay and repair - and so the moths came out again and I have been photographing them to support my textile ideas.  The tweed was a junk shop find and I was thrilled to discover two or three moth holes in it - strange I know!

I am linking up with Mary over at Mosaic Monday 

Decay and Repair and ICAD Cards

Once again I've had a long unintended break from blogging, or doing any arty stuff at all in fact.  I've been waiting for surgery (quite minor), and have been in some discomfort and a rather grumpy frame of mind - I'm still waiting for a date to come through but in the meantime I've felt a little enthused now that the ICAD challenge has started again over at Daisy Yellow Art.  The idea is to make a little bit of art every single day on an index card - nothing precious just whatever takes your fancy!  I must admit I've not managed to work every day but I've done about six cards over a fortnight,  so I'm quite pleased with that achievement! 

Anyway, this is what is on my desk this week for WOYWW.

I'm using these index cards as a way of jotting down ideas about a long term project I'm doing on decay and repair.

Focus On Life - Beauty All Around

Over at the Studio Sublime this week Sally has asked us to look at and capture the beauty all around us.  One thing I absolutely love is the mixture of dark, brooding skies and bright sunshine, and with the storms and weather we've been having lately it's been happening rather a lot. I captured this photograph at Lymington harbour, and added a Pixel Dust texture to it.

WOYWW #249

For WOYWW this week, near my desk but not on it, is a new wool holder - well actually it's an old CD rack that has been in my loft for quite a while - I suddenly had a 'lightbulb' moment while trying to squish some new wool into an already full drawer!  I am  rather thrilled at having them stored in colour order now!  It also means I have a home for the large linen yarn spool that's been knocking around on the floor for years!

Also, on my desk is a record of all the wools and yarns I have (still trying to decide if this demonstrates OCD tendencies!).  I attach a sample of the yarn and add the manufacturer and colour code so I can hopefully get hold of more if I need it - I also do this with rubber stamp images for angel policies, paints, inks, washi tape, ribbons etc - it's often a quicker way of seeing what stash I've got rather than rummaging through boxes and drawers!

Focus On Life - Close-up

This week at the Studio Sublime our challenge from Sally has been to explore the world around us and get really close up.  I've had a few problems getting out and about this week, or even manouvering to take a photo, as I've been nursing a back problem but I did manage to find some photos that I took a while back and I decided to play with them on Photoshop and use those for the challenge - hope no-one minds too much!

Close-up the petals look like I have over-saturated the colour but in fact they had translucent patches where the green shone through from behind - they looked like very delicate tissue paper. 

Coral Embroidery

For WOYWW this week I've been making my own yarn (or cord) for collages.  My friend Jane showed me how to make it, and I made some in a soft but deep red for the work I've been doing on coral - for anyone interested my last two blog posts are about my ongoing 'coral' project. 

 Using an embroidery foot on the sewing machine you simply zig-zag along a fairly thick strand of wool (or several strands), keeping the wool taut front and back.  It's very effective with contrasting cotton threads, or metallic threads and wools. 

You can see the difference between the thick wool and the strands that have been zig-zagged over - I went over some of it twice as I wasn't very even with the zig-zagging - but it was my first attempt!

Work in progress...

 I decided to use some of my cord in a small embroidery that is going in my sketch book. Using embossed velvet as a background, I then used machine embroidery over pieces of vintage lace and crochet, and then machine stitched the thicker yarn I'd made on top.  I still have beads to add, and probably some more embroidery and lace. 

If you would like to know what WOYWW is all about why not pop over there to see what other people have on their desks this week.