my own franken-stitch

while working on my Embroiderer's Ledger samples i wanted a knobbly uneven filler stitch so i did a sort of irregular buttonhole/needlelace stitch and threw in some french-knot type wraps et voila:







i'm rather pleased with the effect and am looking forward to trying it with other yarns too, this was 3 strands of standard embroidery floss, shown with a ruler for scale

i'm thoroughly enjoying the class, karen provides a lot of material and the excercises are coming thick and fast - i'm already struggling to keep up but have also taken off at a brief tangent - but that's ok as i'm experimenting around the theme

i started with an image with a limited range of colours to make it easier on myself and also because i had a limited choice with me (in the caravan) - i am trying to rely on materials i already have for the whole class, instead of using it as an excuse for a shopping frenzy - also the colours are not those i usually work with so i've started with a small challenge

so far i've done colour matching, some colour studies, stitch sampling and a bit of abstracting shapes - i need to work on the shape & pattern abstraction more to work out some motifs for working in stitch - i also wandered off into a bit of paper collage, with reference to the layered colours and shapes in the source

the first 2 page spread looks like this at the moment 

i made a bit of a mess of the first side (right) so took it apart an reconstructed it, i'm glad i was working on paper which i was pasting to the pages as this allows me to change my mind about how to arrange it - i'm not confident enough to work directly onto the pages - also i like the pasted-in look, i'm not really a neat & tidy person and the torn edges are more comfortable for me .... it's a more forgiving look

some close-ups:

colour studies and stitch sampling
using a mix of needle-lace, frankenstitch and normal stitches to give texture 

painted tissue, layered with dilute PVA

painted tissue and greaseproof paper + paper doiley
with a little stitching

i'm keeping more detailed notes in a journal - i'm thinking about binding the pages as pockets so that i can put the notes in with the relevant ledger pages but not have them visible - i could also put in the stuff i don't necessarily want to show up-front, it would avoid having too much folding out or flapping around