Hullo! I’m Curegreed, and every third Friday of the month I’ll be telling you all about what goes on at the degree in The Royal School of Needlework. I’m a student and I’ll be sharing as I’m going. It’s nothing official, but Mr X Stitch thought it’d be interesting. Here goes nothing!
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So our current project is ‘Painting with a needle’, AKA Silk Shading. The very prospect of this filled us newbie stitchers with dread. The margin for error had shrunk dramatically, this was no longer Jacobean crewel work with its nice big crude stitches and little attention to reality, this wasn’t canvas work with it’s safety net of “provided you counted properly, you’ll be fine.” This was silk shading. Our stitched pieces had to look as the object would look in real life. The lighting had to be correct, the colours had to flow into one another, it had to be spot on.
Anne Butcher was brought in for our technical stitch lessons. And as teachers should, she taught us not to be so scared of it. She gave us hints and tips until we’d gained enough courage to try, which is the hardest step. Once you’ve started trying and you’re not scared to fail, it’ll be ok, eventually. So the entire project has been based on two stitches- split stitch and long and short stitch. Split stitch outlines, long and short fill and cover the split stitch. It’s best to remember long and short as ‘long and longer’. Short stitches have no place in colour blending. Work back into the work, work on top, stitch, stitch, stitch. Add more stitches. Put in enough stitches so it just becomes a mass and no individual stitches can be picked out. It’s not regimented, it’s random. It’s trial and error. It’s silk shading.
So, days of work, and what do you end up with?
A leaf with a turnover. *sigh*
See you next time for stories of …Goldwork!
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If you want to see my other work then my personal blog is a pretty good place to start: My Little Stitches
If you want to know more, please get in touch! You can email me at: prettyguns.rosa[at]gmail.com
Disclaimer: Curegreed’s view do not necessarily represent those of the Royal School of Needlework, and she’s not pretending they do. Okay?
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Holey Moley Curegreed! That’s fantastic!
Lovely!
Very cool.
I would be so nervous to try this! Of course, every attempt I’ve made at embroidery so far has been thrown away after only a few stitches.
gorgeous! and thanks for sharing those tips–i always thought it was too delicate to try
Oh, I am just drooling with jealousy at the moment – a course on Needlework. Just makes me wish I had gone for the textile option at college rather than painting, all those years ago but somehow no-one told me textiles, sewing, weaving etc was just as much art as painting a canvas is! looking forward to seeing the regular updates
Beautiful! I would love to learn that
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