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Organic Embroidery

By Stef | March 3, 2009

I’ve signed up for an online class called “Creative Embroidery - Organic Designs,” taught by Susan Sorrell.   It’s a long story, but I’ll try to make it shorter.

About a month ago, the boss decided to allow me to move from one government gray office to a slightly larger government gray office in a quieter part of the building.   This was a welcome change for me.  However, when I moved my things into the office, I discovered that I have more bare gray wall space than ever before.  For someone who likes color as much as I do, this is really hard on the eyes.

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 Can you tell which image is the desk?   I can’t either!

I’m guessing that my new office views were the reason that I’ve recently had an irresistible urge to embroider things.  The more colorful, the better!  With this in mind, I pulled out my embroidery books…

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…and some acid-dyed felt samples from a workshop with Chad Alice Hagen.

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I randomly embroidered a couple of samples…

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…this was a lot of fun.  So much fun, in fact, that I jumped at the chance to take Susan Sorrell’s “Creative Embroidery - Organic Designs” online embroidery workshop when I received her monthly newsletter.

The lessons started last Monday.  The first lesson in the series is designed to encourage folks to enjoy embroidering without stress or fear (at least that’s my rough  interpretation).  We were supposed to practice different stitches and make a little sampler.   I thought it would be interesting to embroider a loose interpretation of a Joan Miro piece.

I decided to start with black thread on a light background so that I could see what I was doing.   I used running stitch, back stitch, and chain stitch.  I’ve never tried chain stitch before, so this was fun.

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Then I colored within the lines using satin stitch…

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…added more blue stitches…

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…then added a little bit of green.  For some reason, the thread wanted to spill across the lines.  I just let my fingers follow.

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 I’m not finished with this sampler yet (I think it really needs eyes and perhaps some other body parts).   However, it’s time for me to move on to the next lesson: “Seeds and Pods”

I think I’ll use one or more of these pods as my inspiration.  I do love these pods!

Electroformed Beads and Pod

Topics: Fiber |

4 Responses to “Organic Embroidery”

  1. Valerie Says:
    March 3rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    Good grief…I thought those pictures were of michigan sky. Put some colorful threads on those walls!

    Your embroidery looks very Picasso-like to me.

  2. MICHmash Says:
    March 3rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    Could you explain to me where you find this extra time :)

  3. Trapunto Says:
    March 5th, 2009 at 9:53 am

    Your embroidery looks great, and fantastically fun. I was having embroidery urges this winter (for the first time since high school!), but I tamped them down for no good reason. Mostly because I didn’t want to drive to the fabric superstore to buy floss. Your pod looks like the ones from an Asian variety of sycamore. Very inspiring.

  4. susan sorrell Says:
    March 14th, 2009 at 9:11 am

    Your embroidery is coming along great! Too bad you can’t just hang large pieces of hand dyed/painted fabric to your walls and embroider during your breaks. ;)

    Wonder what your boss would say if you did that. LOL…

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