Stitch Series

I am spending at least one day a week on my textile work at the moment. I enjoyed creating the paired pieces recently. It gave things a slightly different emphasis, to have to consider two connected elements, pieces which worked individually, but also related to one another. With that in mind, I decided to go one further and create a series of 4 small panels.

To prevent myself from cheating, I once again sewed the 4 pieces side by side on the same strip of cotton. This focused my mind, because they had to stay the same way up and in the same order.

Once again, I used the mark-making samples as inspiration. I have found this helps a lot when working on these purely abstracted pieces. I am released from thinking about representational elements, but I find it difficult to work entirely without subject matter. Once again, it was the randomness of the original marks, combined with my selectiveness at this stage, which particularly appealed to me.

I built up depth of tone, using a combination of tread-ends and my coloured organzas, layering them with different stitched textures. I enjoyed finding ways to get the stitching to ape the drawn and painted marks.

This is how the piece has turned out. I stopped when I thought it was probably finished, but it is a slightly arbitrary decision; I could probably continue. I think my best bet is to leave it now and come back to it in a few weeks, when I will be able to tell for certain.

I feel that this work is building in subtlety and my touch is getting lighter. It's very hard to evaluate when you're working in a vacuum though, so I am just going to soldier on and see where it takes me.