ArtisticMoods.com

Finally! Back to the crafty experiments! Sorry for the delay of sharing the results of Crafty Moods Project nr. 5. The website’s new look took quite a bit of my time. These weeks I spent such long hours behind my computerscreen that my eyes turned square and I ended up with a bad need for some old fashioned offline handwork. Which in my case ment: getting it on with needle & thread.

Trying out embroidery was fun and challenging. I feel like I learned a lot, but could have learned a whole lot more at the same time. Of course I got familiar with the basics, and I felt more comfortable with the process as I went along. The thing is, As embroidery artist Carrie Burch explained, embroidery comes with endless possibilities. Have a peek at some works by Jenn Riggs & Michelle Kingdom and focus on all the different stitched and styles of their work, all leading to different results.

Starting off got me confronted with this right away. What to stitch? And how? I started searching for techniques, tried them out on a piece of fabric but found myself lost in all the possibilities. Then I took a step back and decided to focus only on the things I wanted to make, like I would do with drawing or painting. I started sketching, then stitching. I created countless knots, un-knotted them, continued to stitch and the more time I spent doing it, the more fun it became. Find the results below!

The Crafty Moods Project is a personal initiative in which I experiment with new materials every month, for one year. You can find the results of the previous months here.

Embroidery doodles

Starting off with some tiny doodles was a nice way to get familiar with some techniques. I didn’t doodle a lot though. Pretty soon I found out that embroidery is quite time consuming and I wanted to spend that time on some larger projects as well. But the flowers a strawberry warmed me up pretty well.

Starting off with a cup of coffee

Before this project I had tried embroidery once: at a workshop with artist Mari Kamio during my trip in Japan. The flowers on the coffeecup is what Mari showed us that day. Happy I remembered it!

Embroidery is Rock ‘n Roll!

Creating the shapes was a bit challenging on this lady. I had to experiment a lot with thread directions. Drawing her on fabric before stitching helped me out as I only had to worry about staying within the lines. but I didn’t stay in the lines with her legs. They were huge! Binding the thread together with a little black loop and giving her heels was a satisfying solution.

The cactus

I love making cactuses. It’s hard to wrong with them. The quirkier they turn out, the better!

Lazy lady on thread

I think this lazy lady design is my favorite. She popped in my mind, was sketched on fabric and it all went without too many difficulties. This was the point where I started to feel more comfortable with stitching which allowed me to enjoy it more. The result made me giggle. She’s so tiny!

Girl with flowers

For the last project I didn’t have too much time left but I really wanted to try out something with more details. The result: a very small girl with even smaller flowers.

That’s it!

I now officially love embroidery!