Thursday, February 13, 2014

Organic Hand Embroidery Design Gets Help From Jane LaFazio's Stencil Images

Hi, Linda here and today I'm here to show you how I used one of Jane LaFazio's stencils, Eucalyptus Blooms from StencilGirl.

Initially I was planning to create an art journal page using this stencil, but I'm working on a hand stitched silk piece right now, and while stitching one evening an idea came to me on how I could use this stencil to help me along with this piece.

I started by creating a background using a machine embellisher to adhere various bits of dupioni silk to a piece of felt.  The rest of the work will all be hand embroidery, including couching of hand twisted silk strips as you can see. 



When I work on a piece like this, I work very intuitively.  I have somewhat of a 'vision' in my head, but I stitch and add elements as I go, based on what I see developing before me. The image above is a close up of the larger piece, which is about 18" x 22".

As it is developing, I became aware of the fact that I needed something in the middle third of the piece and I was thinking I wanted them to look somewhat like plants, in a very textural way.  At the same time I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my journal page using Jane's stencil.  That's when it hit me!  The eucalyptus blooms would be a perfect starting point for what I was considering!

I mixed some acrylic paint with fabric medium (to ensure a better 'hand' for hand stitching) and then used a cosmetic sponge to apply the paint through the stencil.





I have intentionally used a fairly subtle paint colour so that it can inform my stitching, perhaps cast a faint shadow effect but for the most part disappear into the background when the stitching is complete. 

The bullion stitch is being used to loosely interpret the blossom, without worrying about making it look exactly like the original design.

I'm using a variety of greens, some variegated, to make the bullion stitches. I'm please with the texture and interest I'm achieving.  I also decided to do some French knots, using a wonderfully textured shiny variegate rayon boucle.  It's a little tricky to stitch with, but I love the results.

This piece will probably take me a few more weeks of hand stitching, so I went ahead and stitched one of the stencil inspired 'plants' just to show you what it will look like.



When this piece is finished, I'll be sure to post it, either over on my own blog, here, or both so you can see the overall effect of the stencil design and how it all stitched up.
Remember, whatever you're working on, keep your stencils in mind.  They just might give you that perfect little boost in your artwork!

Thanks for visiting today!




31 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Jane. Your stencil is perfect for this piece. I'm really enjoying the stitching on this and can't wait to share it when it's done.

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  2. What a great way to use this stencil. A beautiful piece of work.

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  3. Absolutely beautiful and such a great idea!

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    1. Thanks Kris. I was thrilled when the idea came to me...the stencil provides the perfect plant element for the piece!

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  4. Linda, absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait to see the finished piece.

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    1. Thank you Jane. I hope to have it finished and be able to share it next month.

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  5. So stunning, Linda!
    It's always so wonderful seeing what you're creating!!

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  6. Thanks so much for sharing this! Love how it is turning out and I love the idea of using the stencils as a guide. Beautiful, beautiful!!!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Traci. The use for stencils is really limitless!

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  7. Very interesting and informative post Linda . So pretty like it very much.
    Digitemb

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  8. Amazing blog and very interesting stuff you got here.

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  9. It looks amazing, I am crazy about this blog and it works. Really its so good and i am very thankful to you. In very informative and useful for me. Thanks for share. Vintage Embroidery

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  10. nice and such a kind of embroidery produced with the of technology is called as digitizers embroidery.

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  11. Hi i really like this site and its very interesting site it awesome i really appreciating you for your brilliant work.

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  12. Hi i really like this site and its very interesting site it awesome i really appreciating you for your brilliant work.



    Custom Embroidery Digitizing

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  13. You're so good at Hand Embroidery Designs, makes me jealous! Love your tutorials. :)

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