Embroidered Purse

I'm still catching up on showing some previous projects on this blog. Today I have one of the embroidered purses I made a while ago.

I've used a variety of materials in making this purse, beads, cheese cloth, yarns of different types, mostly just playing around.  The bird was made by covering a thick interfacing with fabric.

 These little purses are like interactive works of art, which is an idea I really like.

Hopefully there will be more purses in the future because I really like them!

March 2013

I have finished my embroidery journal project for this month. I had the idea at the end of February, so I went ahead and started it.

I got this idea from watching the birds, of course, as I often do. These blackbirds love to eat fruit. Apples are a favorite, but I think they like the raisins even better.

I added the tangle of branches around the little bird, since they spend their days hiding out in the bushes.  The males are jet black which makes the orange ring around their eyes really stand out.

The snow and ice continue melting. The winter has been long and oppressive. The sun is starting to be strong enough to warm us. Now we wait for the days to grow long enough for the blackbirds to break out into their sweet song.

Cloudberries

Hi all,
I'm back from family vacation time. I had a great time, but it's always nice to be back to the regular schedule! I'm ready to go on some new projects with some new blogging energy. Hopefully the energy will sustain me for a good while into the future!

I've been thinking to do this for awhile, that is to spotlight some of the themes that show up in my embroideries and other works. This time I have chosen the elusive cloudberry! Actually they aren't that elusive, but they are a northern fruit, so they aren't seen down here where I live all that often. That doesn't stop me from including this interesting fruit in my work!

I used it in my fruit stumpwork project. I used beads to represent them. The sparkle is a lot of fun!

Also I used them in my latest project which was the crewel version of the fruit wreath. I experimented with some different ways to stitch them. I wanted to avoid another pile of french knots - that idea had already been used a couple times in this project, so I went with a trellis pattern over satin stitching.

I have also drawn and painted the cloudberry. First I gave it a try with colored pencils. It's fine, but my pencil lines ended up too heavy. (I've got a lot to learn!!) Paying greater attention to the colors felt like a step forward in any case.

Next I tried the same picture but with watercolors. I felt like this was a big improvement over previous attempts with the watercolors, so I was happy enough for the time.

It's been rumored that there are cloudberries growing around here too. I had no idea where. But thanks to my cloudberry studies I knew what they looked like, so when I happened upon these guys growing in some mushy land, I was happy to finally have spotted the elusive berry plants!

You can be sure I will be watching out to see if these make any berries this summer!!