March

The first week of March has swept on by and the weather went from a snowy/icey mess, into this amazing, almost 70 degree, Richmond in March, wonderfulness!!! If you can't tell I am over winter, I have been over it since January. I did take some time this week, while I was un-motivated to do little more than stitch, to make an alphabet sampler. It was a nice break from the speed sewing I am used to, and gave me time to catch up on some Oscar movies. (I loved Blue Jasmine, and American Hustle, and August Osage County). I used the pattern from Posie.com to make this sampler, that will be going to baby Ella.  

Love the hunter boots! 

and the tiny winter cabin, with the bunny... 

All together it took me about 3 days to get this finished. I used the colors that I felt like using from my collection, but I do like her suggestions. I pinned it and framed it myself, all in all I think it turned out pretty sweet for a new little baby. I am even considering making another one for myself. 

organic objects

I think that these flowers are the most perfect little things. They are difficult to grow and hard to find in good shape at the market. Rodundrums. I treated myself to a bunch the other day and find myself staring at their perfection. Lovely. 

I finished the Alicia Paulson "garden sampler" cross stitch a couple of weeks ago. It was a nice little mind-calming project. I altered her colors a bit and did not make an alphabet in the bottom, but mostly I followed her pattern. I love all the different shapes and soft colors mixed with brights from nature. I used a lot of WEEKS dye works floss for this project and think it was perfect because of the variegation, for organic shapes. This might end up stretched in a frame, or on a pillow perhaps. For now it awaits finishing... The Beehive is my favorite part!

I blame Downton

I blame Downton Abbey for my recent addiction to cross stitch. While I was sick and watching that show I felt inspired to use my hands, but I did not feel well enough to be in the studio, so I began stitching. It feels old, the technique is the same as it was 100 years ago, somehow it fit with the old world feel of the show and it kept me company, while I sat around feeling awful. I did finally get better, but somehow the addiction did not go away, oh well, I see it as an excuse to get some patterns made that I have been admiring for some time now. 

This pattern is by Alicia Paulson, from the Posie gets Cozy blog, when she first made it I fell in love with the whole look of it. I have stayed mostly true to the pattern, I do not think that I will include the alphabet portion of the sampler though. I picked my own colors, but definitely used hers as a reference. This sampler has taught me to appreciate variegated threads, I have never really loved them, but they work really nicely with a project like this, to add dimension. The weeks dye works are my favorite and the Cosmo, from Japan goes really nicely too. The black background just helps all of the colors and stitches really pop, I love the look of it! 

I really have been on a mission with the little cross stitches! I finished this VA map for an anniversary gift. It has all the places that we have been in Virginia along with the place where we met, and live now, complete with the date of the anniversary. I love maps, and loved making this one, I am thinking about making a couple more from this line of patterns. 

I am off to Italy this weekend and will not be back until March, I am so excited!!! I was there when I was 16 but I can't wait to see it through my eyes now, and experience it as an adult. The art, the food, the fashion, and everything about the culture was mesmerizing to me when I went last time. I even wanted to move to Tuscany... I hope it holds the same magic now that it did then. 

inspired

I have been wanting to watch this show for some time now, it took being sick last month to really begin watching Downton Abbey. It is such a beautifully made show with imagery, history and a great story line. After watching the first season I moved right into the second, and just this week broke down got the third season and have seen that too. It can be a bit addictive, the nice thing is there are only about 9 episodes each season with a couple special long ones.   

One of my favorite things to visually grasp in the show, is the clothing. It happens to be one of my favorite eras, clothes wise, and they have done a wonderful job making sure the costumes are perfect!

I have noticed they do use Liberty of London fabrics for some of the blouses and it is not only historically correct, it makes me want to pull mine out and start making more stuff with them, as well as buy some hats and dress up for dinner! 

With all of this Downton I have been watching, I have been inspired to begin stitching by hand, something that I have not done in a while. It has reminded me that stitching used to be "women's work"especially embroidery. I have been working on some cross stitch samplers, I really haven't made one of these in a long time,  and finished one already. It reminds me of how much I love all the colors in embroidery floss. I consider it half the fun in embroidery, all the choices!

I must admit I have also been looking at Liberty of London fabrics, even more than normal, due to seeing it on the show. I have an itch to stock up and make something with all Liberty... Trying to make myself use the ones I have before I do that though.... we will see how long that lasts! 

I must admit, it is nice to see a show that is so lovely visually, and the way it is written. 

needles pulling crosses

It has been a very long time since I made an embroidery from a pattern that wasn't my own, however when I saw this "Virginia" map, I had to make it! I love the appearance of maps and geographic drawings and this one was very sweet without being too "cute." I am almost done with it, and there is a little surprise altering I am doing to it, because it is going to be a present. I think the last time I made a cross-stitch pattern I was still in high school, I must admit sometimes the repetitive action without all the thinking help to calm the mind. 

I used a silk/linen blend for the cross stitch fabric and pattern that I got at my local quilt shop, Quilting Adventures. They have a huge selection of embroidery materials including hand dyed fabrics, many different floss options and patterns, patterns, patterns. I am always intrigued by this section and love the floss options which I have built a nice collection of. My favorite to use is Sullivans, they seem to glide through the fabric and they do not knot as much. I still have a huge assortment of DMC because they have many many colors and the price can't be beat! I have also been collecting some WEEKS hand dyed threads. The colors on them are so life-like, and diverse. 

For this project I did use my own colors and only looked at the suggested ones as a guide. 

I used to wind them on little cards, and recently just gave up on the time it takes to do that. If you pull the thread from the end it will stay in place on the paper rounds, and it also stays marked with the color, which takes the guess work out of it later. I just keep them sorted by warm and cool, and brand. 

garden inspirations

A small view into why my garden has been such a source of inspiration for me.... Family of woodpeckers living in one of my trees.

And also to let you know I have posted these on etsy. http://www.etsy.com/shop/anaslayers 

updated bits.

My completed alphabet finally came back from the frame shop. I am pleased with it! It is silly and fun and perfect for a little one. The frame I picked out is plain white, with a linen fillet, museum glass. This type of glass is amazing it does not allow for any glare, and of course there is a spacer in there too, so that the glass does not sit on the fabric. 

                                   

                                     

                                   

I also worked on this tiny quilt some more. It may morph into something but I mainly worked on this to help me with my binding skills and to see how I like the look of embroidery floss as a means to quilt something together.    

                                   

I started using the Sullivan's embroidery floss and am loving the colors and the hand of it. It just glides right through fabric, I have slowly been collecting all the colors.

stitching along

The past week was my first week really jumping into the studio, it has been lovely. I have been working on a couple of different things at the same time, which is always a good way for me to work. These are some little embroidery pieces that are inspired by the garden. I spend a lot of my time in the summer out there, watering, planting, snipping and medling around. The idea of myself as a gardener is funny in a way, because I never used to be the kind to dig up dirt. 

These are silly and not meant to be taken too seriously. I really wanted to embroider, and try out some new embroidery floss that I had, so these doodles were a good way to do it. I will be stretching them and making them look more finished and they will be up on etsy.com, hopefully next week.

A to Z...

So I am guilty of starting a project every once in a while and putting it down for a month... or a year or two.... well this is one of those. I began this as a gift for one of my bestfriends' for her new baby. Well the baby will be 2 in September and this sat unfinished at the letter "h" for a while. I picked it up the other week and finished the rest of it in a week. It felt good to prove to myself that I can still be productive when I put myself up to it. I took the letters from various places and then did my take on a sampler. I love the traditional samplers, the different colors, stitches and threads, and I thought and alphabet is a great place to use them all... It is at the frame shop at the moment so some more photos to come. 

The french knots turned out to be my favorite and the whole thing... oh and the "e"... 

old and new.

-Modern sampler

This summer has been filled with change, experience, and moments shared with some very important people in my life. There was a big move (almost sent me over the edge), a wedding, two new babies, some trips to the ocean, some laughs, some tears, and some room for growth. Through this time my mind has been making what my hands have not had time to do. Finally things calmed down a bit and I started playing with some thread and needles. I have been fascinated by traditional embroidery samplers as long as I can remember. It is an organized way to show different stitches and embroider something as simple as a letter or a number.
With one of the new babies that came I made a quilt, back in the winter, under 3 feet of snow! For the newest little one added to my circle of friends, I decided to make an alphabet sampler. This baby already has two brothers, so she had everything she needed including some quilts, I thought the alphabet sampler would be a fun piece to hang on the wall that the brothers could learn from too. I am using all different fonts, stitches and colors, on a piece of feed sack I have lying around. I am about half way through it and it looks like it belongs in a nursery already.
Sometimes making for me is about a concept, that has many layers and meaning, and others it is about people and the idea of giving a handmade object as a keepsake. After all that is what history is made of.
Some other things have been brewing in this studio as well. A new collection of quilt "fragments" has appeared and when the sampler is done, a new "quilt" project will be tackled.


-Traditional sampler



This is with the letter layed out, not yet embroidered. I am about half way through- photos to come!

masquerades

stitch by stitch...

thread by thread....

I finally finished this little embroidery. This little piece began as an experiment in transferring the image, as a permanent line. It was a way for me to teach myself a skill, and then apply it to another work. Somewhere alone the way I fell in love with the imagery and the idea of concealing and revealing, with masks. There are parts of us that we show to the world, and others that we hide behind masks, and only very few people are let into. I am happy with the final outcome, and can now tear off all the tracing paper with the final image down on the fabric. Usually I go back over the "sketch" with more stitches or take them out, I really enjoy the "sketchy" look of the line in this though.

I have begun teaching a class at the visual arts center, traditional weaving techniques with un-conventional materials. This has forced me to look into some of the things I used to make and how they were made. This is great, in fact it has the wheels in my brain going again... Who knows maybe I will even pick up a loom again. And instead of making pieces about falling apart, they will be about keeping it together and safe.

horizons.

There are two things that are inevitable in life. The first is change. The second time. My obsession with time, and the passing of it, has been apparent for the past couple of years. However for the first time in a long time, I feel as though I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I celebrated 26 a couple of weeks ago, and looking around the table at dinner, I saw that I am surrounded by amazing people that inspire and encourage me on a daily basis. While time doesn't stop, sometimes there are moments that are so precious that we continue to feel them years after they happen. Those are the moments that motivate me when it comes to making.





Sometimes projects don't go the way that we want them to. I have been working on another embroidery for a while, but got very frustrated with it last week. (Note to self... embroidering thread to look like skin=headace). Anyhow, I decided to pull out these masks again. I am working on finishing them for a holiday gift to a close friend. This started out as an outline that I was going to fill in. However I have decided to leave the outline as part of the finished piece and work on the masks and other details to fill in. I am also limiting my pallete with this piece, to emphasize the shapes and mystery of the masks. I am hoping to be done with this one by the end of the week.

moving ahead

Sometimes it takes pulling out the old artwork, journals, sketchbooks, photos, and really looking and thinking to realize what happened. How did I go from making always to barely being able to make? The past few weeks I have been looking through all of my old things and pin-pointed the place where making became hard to deal with. I put a lot of myself into anything that was made, and sometimes it is hard to look at the work, or make it because it means having to be vulnerable and open to exposure. Something that is hard, for someone that puts up a hard wall to the world most of the time. Well after looking, I began sketching in a brand new book, and there are definitely some new things coming into my mind, and the ends of my fingertips are moving again. The only way to get through all of this...is to make and deal with it head on. Above are some photos of a embroideries that I did a while ago and the other one, the mask outlines, is a current one that I have been working on.