The contemporary samples presented here are both silver and gold - I felt silver was probably more in keeping with my colour palette. To these I chose to add blue.
I mentioned in chapter one I had been drawn to encaustic tiles and wanted to give this appearance to the background for my samples. Using calico, I brushed it roughly with dilute emulsion; gelli-printed it with Prussian Blue Golden Fluid Acrylic; gelli-printed over this with Inscribe Acrylic Pure silver/gold that had been textured using the non-slip matting you find in pound shops. These processes were constantly changing the handle of the fabric, making it stiffer.
Rather than backing the fabric to add additional strength to give stability to the stitch work, I waxed it with paraffin wax. On stitching it stood up well to the laid work and if the wax cracked, on heating with a hair drier it returned to its original state without having any effect on the metalwork - you did partially lose that lovely cloudiness where the needle went into the ground though.
MM15 and 16 show my finished samplers - 21cmWx18.5cmH. Enlargements and explanations follow below. In keeping with my theme I have attempted to give a feeling of bird to my samples...either by shape or by texture, e.g. feathers, wings, eggs etc.
MM17 - Waitrose yoghurt pot top cut, scrunched and couched with silver and blue metallic thread using Cretan Stitch.
MM18 - Sheer grey ribbon couched in silver with random cross stitches and in blue metallic with fly stitches.
MM19 - Twilleys Golderfingering couched or nué with blue metallic and Madeira Jewel holographic-effect thread. MM20 gives a view from a different angle where the blue and silver become more distinguishable. On completion, holes were made in the calico with an awl and the Goldfingering threads were taken to the back, the wax heated with a hair drier and the ends pushed into the melted wax. This did work...sort of.
This sample is 8cmWx8.5cmH. Yes, this took hours, about 8.
MM21 - Philadelphia Cheese top, crimped using crimping machine and couched down, the curved sample using blanket stitch.
MM22 - Ferrero Rocher wrapping folded in strips, rolled and then smoothed using a Clover Finger Presser. (Simple but very versatile tool - don't know how I managed without it!) Couched using linen thread.
MM23 Gold wire plaited; couched with linen thread using stitches that formed ladders between the rows of gold wire; and then raised chain band using these ladders.
MM24 - Jap gold knotted and couched using linen thread.
MM25 - Ferrero Rocher again (it was a very big box), this time without smoothing. Basketwork in linen thread firstly using more Ferrero Rocher papers and then Jap gold.
MM26 - wire circles couched with blue metallic thread.
MM27 and 28 - raised work using cardboard. Jap gold, blue metallic thread and natural mercerised cotton.
MM29 - check purl and linen loops.
MM30 - wire wrapped round cocktail stick to form 'purl' leaving long ends. Threaded purl and couched ends with fly stitch using linen thread.
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