PLS Week 3

this week was about exploring line - i used some luscious hand dyed wool felt and played with some of the stitches from last week as well. i used a beautifully soft silk from the thread studio in the indian splendour colour and tried it in different weights ie number of strands and different stitches.

i started with the felt circle and embroidered a red glass bead using spider web stitch (so well that you can't actually see the bead anymore!) i found it hard to maintain the tension with this stitch and would like to do some more practice. then i appliqued the circle to the base felt with fly stitch. i had fun with the interlacing on the right - that's handspun yarn woven through three rows of running stitch in indian splendour with 2 strands, then row 2 is more thread studio hand dyed - this time silk ribbon in garnet. it was my first time using silk ribbon and it went through the felt like butter - just gorgeous to work with. then a line of fly stitch this time with more strands of indian splendour (can't remember how many - at least 4, then i changed down to 2 to finish the line). it struck me what a difference the interlacing made to the first line - it immediately added more curves and made a gradual curve into a bumpy one.

it was surprisingly difficult to do fly stitches in a curve - i could practically feel the g forces as i steered the thread into the bends. and the weight of the thread didn't make much of a difference


exhibit b is the first piece of silk paper i made a month or so ago. i just decided to follow the natural contours of the paper with layers of fine stitching - running, detached chain, detached fly and little feather. and there's even a small bit of interlacing

so far i have used rayon, cotton and silk and found that the cotton went through the silk paper smoothly and with less tangles than the other two.

one of the issues we were think about this lesson is the differences between line in the natural and the built environments. i may be wrong but line in the natural environment never seems to be completely straight - there's always a curve or unevenness in there somewhere and they tend to follow the path of least resistance.

i thought about this as i stitched and just let my fingers feel where to go rather than making decisions before i stitched. it's a very soothing piece to stitch.