I've been thinking about clouds. As I shared in my previous WIP post, I'm working on a piece called Sheep Metal and have been contemplating adding clouds to the piece. It's too much blue if I don't add something to break it up a bit. This got me thinking about how to stitch clouds. I've used French knots, satin stitch, and back stitch in previous pieces. All work well and produce different types of clouds. I was thinking of which option to use when I got an idea: bullion knots. What would bullion knot clouds look like?
So I did something I haven't done before: I made a cloud sampler. Given the design of the piece, a back stitch cloud would look silly so I included three options; French knots, satin stitch, and bullion knots.
How fun is this? Not only can I use this sampler for this piece, but I can use it as a reference for future designs that might include clouds. I love being able to try things out before adding them to a design. I did a little of that last year, but not nearly enough. Bullion knots make interesting looking clouds, but I don't think they'll work as well for this piece. I shared all three with Kelly and she liked the French knot version best. I think she's right. I'm planning to use a larger knots for the clouds so they're different enough from the ones I'm using for the sheep. I may try some wool thread, which I've never used, to get a different texture going too.
My goal is to finish the sky this week, the sheep next week, and the clouds after that. Maybe this piece will be done by mid-February. We shall see.
I also decided to try out some new textile paints and finally use the mixed media art journal I bought last year. The journal includes canvas, burlap, watercolor paper, and kraft paper. I'm particularly excited to use the canvas and burlap to include some embroidery in my art journal. I used Jacquard textile paint for this first page. A couple of embroidery artists I follow on Instagram have used this type of paint recently, so I bought a few colors and the color extender (helps make the paint more transparent).
I'm treating each paint section as a separate embroidery piece. I want to try different stitches, needles, and threads to see what works best on the canvas. Although I did use the color extender, I found using water to thin the paint was better for making the paint more transparent. I want to try again and mix a larger sample of paint and the extender.
For the first section, I decided to use a few different shades of green (DMC 3850, 958, 954). I used all six strands as well. This design mimics some of my abstract pieces from last year and is influenced by my love of Alma Thomas's work.
Overall, the canvas is going to be fun to work with, but it's hard to embroider. Stitching is fine; the canvas is a light weight so a needle and thread pass through easily, but it's hard to actually move the needle around. The journal is in the way so it's harder to maneuver. This may be because I started with the paint closest to the spine of the journal. I think the other sections will be easier to embroider. I may even try using a small hoop. I'm excited to keep working on this journal page and see what else I can do with the other page types. I love embroidering on paper, so that's definitely on the horizon. I also have a ton of paint and inks from the art journal classes I used to take. It'll be nice to switch it up and try some other mediums outside of thread.
Can you believe it's almost the end of January? That means it's almost the end of the first month of my stitch journal. Given that the last day of January falls on a Monday, I'm going to save the weekly recap for January 31 and combine it with the monthly post for January. I'll also share the next project I plan to start in February.
I hope you enjoy my WIP posts! I have so many ideas for projects and samplers and random things. I need to remind myself they don't all need to be done in January!
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