Choker development

I've been working on the choker and making small triangles to attach to this. I still have to make the fastening and to add beads.

Art in my garden

Bird man sculpture by Russell (part of his A level work)
This photo was taken last weekend when we still had sunny weather. It's all looking very soggy today.

No work on Distant Stitch recently as I've been busy helping Gail celebrate her 18th birthday - prepared food and house for 14 guests. We spent the evening in our garden enjoying the mild weather. I'm looking forward to getting back to normal routine this week.

Almost there

At last I have joined the triangles with the beaded tassels, with plenty of frequent breaks and days without any stitching. This image is produced by scanning my work - hence the 'strange' positions of the tassels and the shadow round the edge. Next I need to produce some cord to thread through the loops currently joined with safety pins.

Triangles joined with beads

I've made eighteen bead tassels and am now joining the triangles together with them. This is so fiddly and makes my wrists sting, so I can only work a few at a time. I really don't want a repeat of acute RSI.

Further work on triangles

Since Summer School I have been producing triangles for my accessory. These are some of them. The top three show the "right side" - blue cord triangles beaded and attached to the orange/blue "lining" triangles. The lower three show the "lining" side. These were made using two different cords.

The week I am working on bead tassels and cords to connect these triangles together.

Bead sampler

The bead sampler is mounted on cartridge paper, which I dyed turquoise. You can see how I have attached the page to the dowel, so that this can hang in my display stand.

Module 3 - Man Made Spirals

We were asked to look at spirals in man made structures. I wanted to display my work in a different way for this module. I had used display books for Module 1, and bound my work for Module 2 using a comb binder. I designed this display stand - it is made of MDF which I have painted turquoise. Each page is suspended on the two side rails. There is one centre rail at the base to give the stand stability. My tassels are displayed on a spiral stand and my buttons and toggles will be in a box. The lid of this box will be my resolved sample.

Tassels and stand

The stand is made from cardboard tubes, with a wooden base, painted turquoise. The orange top is made of paper, spiralling round into a ball shape. The tassels are hanging on wooden craft sticks, which I trimmed to various lengths, notched, and dyed orange. The sticks spiral up the cardboard tube.

Development of Triangle Samples

Securing cords on Soluthick dissolvable fabric with free machine zigzag stitch.

Samples before dissolving. Note spiral stitching on lower left sample does not have enough 'spokes' to support the free machine straight stitching when Soluthick is dissolved.

Samples now with Soluthick dissolved. RH sample is two triangles, one placed over one slightly larger.

Just looked at Surfaces to Stitch by Gwen Hedley - helping Gail with fastenings for her AS level art piece based on "Sense", so we'll have a go at making toggles with painted Tyvek, and wire.

Toggle Making in Nov 06

Bead painted turquoise then tossed in a container of orange paint. Machine stitched fine orange cord (see paper toggle too). I 'looped' the cord through the bead and knotted various threads from my hand dyed selection, round each loop.

I really like the way the frayed edges 'spiral'.

Frayed edges - two layers of fabric - no embroidery

Paper toggle with machine stitched edge. I used a florist's 'paper'.

Machine 'blanket stitched' edge

Felt toggle - blanket stitched edge