Following on from my last blog about a fabulous new book called Stitch Draw by Rosie James I've been busy stitching some more family portraits.
This is my grandson James posing on his granddad's motorbike made into a birthday card for his mummy Jo. I had a lot of fun layering some coloured scraps under the white polyester before the machine embroidery and then mounting it on a woodland background that had started life as a sketchbook cover. I finished it off with some fabric paint to deepen the colours.
Here is Kirsty again on her pole, mounted on some fabulous Liberty printed linen and then I overstitched some of the flowers to bring them forward.
Sarah-Josephine, my youngest granddaughter takes lots of selfies to post on Facebook and I capture them to use for drawings or embroideries. I print them off and trace a simple outline which I then enlarge to trace onto a translucent cotton organdie.
I stretch the organdie in my large embroidery hoop and set up my machine for free stitching with the feed dogs down and zero stitch length, install the darning foot and away I go!
I love following my lines (mostly) and making the image in just the same way as when I'm drawing with a pen or coloured pencils. Then I mount the image on a piece of batik patchwork fabric and stitch around the edges before cutting away the surplus and stitching over the patterns in a coordinating colour.
This third portrait is completely hand stitched as I wanted to be able to do some embroidery in the evenings while (half) watching the TV. I have one more in the pipeline to start this week and I'm really pleased with how they are turning out, the only thing is what to do with them next, maybe another fabric book.
