Introduction to hand embroidery week 1

During the introduction into hand stitch we were introduced into the three fundamental hand stitch running stitch, ladder stitch, French knots and chain stitch, we also learnt about positioning the needle and in which stitched to hold the thread towards and away from you as well as being told to always stitch away from you  . We were given a piece of hessian and had to split it into thirds and demonstrate each stitch in each section playing around with stitch length and width to use in my technical file. We were given the task of creating 10 hand samples.

This is an example of my experimenting with a sample with different type of media including paper and mattress lining. I re drew a chance card drawing from a previous week and created this sample from it. I plan to add a chain stitch running along and French knots in circular form to link this sample back to my inspirational photographs.

For this sample I decided to be more simplistic and edit down to think about the line in which the stitch travels a chose a cream material and white thread and used chain stitch to create this sample. I varied the shape of chain stitch, this gives the effect that the stitch is in essence going further into the distance. The simplistic yet thoughtful nature of this sample is something I find interesting and would like to think more bout in my further samples.





As I had previously introduced paper in to my sample this is something I decided to experiment more with but in a different way, I looked back through my photographs of Manchester and found some gravel which inspired this sample I simply used a needle to make holes in a piece of paper which had been printed on black. The holes looked as if they could be minute French knots and so I decided to add a few looped French knots to add another texture, to improve this sample more I could experiment more with the scales of holes and French knots as well as introducing other types of paper for example hand made paper this would give the piece a more tactile effect.


























I was inducted onto the Cornelli machine and introduced to several versions of this machine which either produce a chain stitch or a moss stitch. I was really apprehensive to use these machines due to the noise because you have to control the machine from underneath. The machine was hard to control at first but became easier and enjoyable. This is an example of very heavy chain stitch on a wool flannel, I used a grey and cream thread to give the  sample a stone effect. To take this sample further I could introduce another technique for example a hand chain stitch or French knots.