Gallery of past work

Monday 30 October 2017

Silver birches

In Scotland for a few days this week, between walking and visiting friends, I’m stitching this trial piece on cotton using perlé 8 and 12 threads from DMC. I’m playing with positive and negative shapes and adding a smattering of colour to suggest leaves, using small French knots ...


It comes from this photo of silver birches taken recently in the Kanaskis valley, Alberta, (where autumn was turning as we watched) and via Photoshop Elements where I enhanced the image and converted it to black and white.


 I've printed out a second copy of this small image (12.7 x 17.8 cm) and intend next to try another colour way. Such small images are quickly and easily completed and are great for exploring ideas. Scaling up later, however, can be more tricky!

Now, on a completely different topic, is anyone else having problems with Blogger? Following recent Windows and Apple updates, on my PC I'm unable to access most of the features on Layout so I can't make any changes, I find viewing on my iPad has minor glitches, posting this post on my iPad was fraught with difficulty and the Blogger app is unusable. I suspect Google have stopped supporting it ... Am I right?

So, I might just be about to change blog provider - any advice?

8 comments:

  1. Interesting to see what you are doing with the birches photograph. I look forward to seeing how you pursue this.

    As for Blogger: I have not had any problems - so far, at least. When I updated to Windows 10 a few months ago all sorts of things went wrong that I had to fix, but not with Blogger.

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    1. Thank you for your encouraging comments, Olga. Thoughts about the silver birch images are still very much at the ‘let’s play and see what, if anything useful, materialises’ stage. I will post any interesting developments.

      Thanks also for replying re Blogger. As Lin below is also reporting no problems, I think I’ll need to consult useful internet sites on my return home next week.

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  2. I too have no problems with blogger.
    Fascinating to see how black and white changes the picture. xx

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    1. Good to hear from you, Lin. Black and white is very powerful - endlessly so, I find. Long may it last!

      As I said to Olga above, I’ll need Blogger help with from a higher authority, I think! Not sure where to find it, but I’m hoping Utube may help.

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  3. Have you ever used silk ribbon in embroidery? The french knots look too big or thick proportionally to me but I've seen narrow silk ribbon used for leaves to great effect. Where the ribbon goes into the fabric,it scrunches to get through the hole while the rest between the holes stays flat, shaping the ribbon into a natural leaf shape - if that is the effect you are going for. I do like this addition to your print.

    As for blogger, I haven't changed the layout on mine for ages and refuse their offer to "upgrade" a long time ago, which I found later many people suddenly experienced problems when they did. I'm begrudgingly up to Windows7 within the last year and refuse to go more recent until there's no alternative. I am not a fan of change and supposed improvements in technology, obviously. :-)

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    1. Thank you for your comment and things to think about! The effect I was after was suggestion of leaves rather than accuracy and I quite like the texture given by the perlé 8, though I agree it’s perhaps a bit heavy. The answer to your question is - no I haven’t tried silk ribbon but I t’s an interesting thought, though I guess it would have to be very fine to give a more delicate mark than my knots. I will do some looking. Also, I’m working another little version of the image and am planning to try seeding instead of those knots to see what effect that gives. I could also make the knots with perlé 12 instead of the perlé 8 I used above ... as always, much to consider!

      I seem to be alone with my Blogger difficulties! For now, I will keep going and will try and sort things out when I have more time.

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  4. une belle interprétation!

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    1. Merçi Elfi. En ce moment, je fais beaucoup d'expérimentation. Comme toujours, c'est un grand plaisir!

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