Coral and Almond Blossom

Here are two close-ups of a coral piece I'm trying to finish. I did a lot of machine embroidery on it this morning using a reel of - it's not thread - I think it's some kind of plastic film that has been treated to have a turquoise hologram effect on it, then sliced into a thread-size strip and rolled onto a bobbin.

It breaks all the time if you use it in the top on the machine, but it works a treat if you use it in the bobbin, except that you have to stitch upside-down. It doesn't photograph very well, and the stitching I did is at the top of the piece, not shown in these pix. This piece started last year using "goodies" my friend Cyn sent in the mail - silk coccoons (upper left in the first pic), purple ribbon, etc.


Here is a pic of almond blossom from my Van Gogh book, "Vincent by Himself", edited by Bruce Bernard, Orbis Publishing Limited, London, 1985, giving an idea of the new piece I want to do next, except I want to use sketches I'm planning to do tomorrow based on observation of the almond trees outside the kitchen window and the pix I took the other day. Although I like the mistletoe in the trees around here, I'm not sure I'll include it in the embroideries.


I used my Pebeo Setasilk Gitane blue and Cyan blue silk paints on some pale blue satin I bought at the market last year for 1Euro/metre, and had to be patient while it dried. It still wasn't dark enough to get that sapphire feeling of a Springtime sky, so after ironing it to set the first layer of colour, I applied the washes again. Unfortunately, I took the hairdryer to it to try to speed up this second wash, and it shifted the colour around unevenly. O well, sigh, I guess it will add character to that piece.

I have to sketch the skeletons of the trees first and figure out how to represent them in stitch & fibre, so it will be at least another day before I can start stitching the French knots with the cream coloured knitting ribbon to represent the blossoms, which is the bit I really want to get to...

Finally, here is a pic of the beaded gussets I did on the little bag that makes me think of almond blossom - the very one that I blogged about earlier in the month.