Studio Tour Day Three, Haberdashery

 
 Where would I be without pincushions? These were made for me by Kate Haxell from some very old pigs and lettuces!

 I have worn my fingertips out over the years with pins and needles so I now need a little help picking up my small tools. These old glass vase 'frogs' are perfect for holding my scissors just where I can grab them.

 One of my legacies from my great aunt Lily was a vast collection of old wooden cotton reels. These now live in wooden desk trays near my sewing machine where they can be admired.

Tomorrow the 'objets' !

Studio Tour Day Two, Things in Jars

  All over my studio are glass jars and domes of all sizes. These tiny ones (above) contain Elizabethan pins, glove buttons, flat metallic glass beads and apple pips.

 
 Next to those is a an Art Deco powder compact with added antique lace and feathers.

Between my two desks (actually there are three...) is an old set of shelves held up in part with books. Here I keep my tiny apothecary jars of natural objects; leaf skeletons,lichen,seed pods and so forth.

On one of the window sills are jars for some of my old wooden cotton reels; you may notice that I label my jars with their emotional contents....hope, despair, wabi sabi, luck.

Tomorrow it will be haberdashery.

Studio Tour Day One, The Desk

 Like many other creative people I am not finding a mindset that I can work in at the moment, my main thoughts at the moment are to do with getting food and the safety of loved ones. I do however find great consolation in my studio, which is ten yards from my home.With this in mind it seemed timely to share my favourite studio things. I will do this over the next seven days starting with my desk...
 The image above is what I call my inspiration plate; a large antique wooden dish loaded with antique haberdashery, trimmings, china flowers, gold ribbons, glass buttons and all things that delight me. It has always sat on my 'embroidery' desk to inspire me to do things better. Everything in it is of a very high quality from a past age when such things were still to be had.

 
 On my other desk is a lovely oak pigeon-hole shelf where I keep a selection of random loveliness. This sits at the back of a wide desk for my sewing machine and fabric cutting.

Surgery and embroidery

Fleur's Cube from Paul William Craddock on Vimeo.

 I have previously described some of what I have been doing on this piece , 'The Epiploic Cube', but now you can see it doing its thing......
 It was made in response to watching not just surgery for three years but the surgeons hands; how they move and respond to their 'materials'. It is not something that just anyone is allowed to watch and certainly not something that many would want to. However it is so fascinating that I felt I had to try and give people an idea.
 In June of 2019 I wrote a coupe of posts describing the process of designing and embroidering the cube and although there is already a lot of it over on 'Thread Management' here are a few images of the completed piece.

A trimming I made inspired by the tassels for Caselguidi embroidery in the 'Wordsworth Country' range of silks from The Silk Mill

 

A bud in detached buttonhole stitch on taffeta,  all woven silks were from ' The Silk Route'

 
One of the embroidered and elasticated straps which hinder the movement of the cube,

 A collapsing cube made in organza with an embroidered dorset button inside. If folds up and tucks into a pocket on one face of the cube but has to be removed before you can 'operate'.

 

  The side of the cube that surgeons don't like, it turned out that the colour has a dark significance for them. The embroidery is incomplete because I then went on to distress the fabric, repair it and distress it again.

 

Plans and notes for each side, I like to make a shade card for each piece of work that I do.

 
In the background here you can see a copy of Therese de Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlework! 1886 (a link to the Gutenburg Project online copy)

Busy

I have several long term projects on my desk at the moment which means a mental log-jam .....

so here are some stills from a little film I made of what I see from my desk,

and yes I did tidy up a bit!

....and then this is my other desk (seen in the second still) with all the medical projects in progress.

just saying

Wasp's nest

 This has been ongoing for a while now! I am trying to make a wasp's nest in raised lace. The stitches aren't difficult in themselves, it's trying to think like a wasp that is hard. Do I work across the surface in layers or do I make each cell completely before I move onto the next? I am trying a staggered surface because of the risk of crushing each part as I go with my fingers.

I was given some coarse linen thread a while ago and it has a good 'chewed paper' colour and is robust when stitched. The down side is that it wears very quickly.

 It is starting to build quite nicely though..

Studio stuff

It's getting very warm in the studio and it's not always easy to sit and do white work with hot hands!
One little tool that I've been given does make things a lot easier, a pair of toothed tweezers. They are a medical tool, inexpensive, but they are brilliant for getting rid of bits of fluff and holding the thread securely when you are doing fine work. The ends have tiny 'teeth' which grip but do not damage,perfect for needlelace!

..and this is why. I am doing a large piece of raised lace with lichen like growth and sometimes I just need more grip. This one is being done on vellum in the traditional way but there is nothing else traditional about it. The threads will be unusual and so will the presentation. However, it will take a while to get this one made so in the meantime I have several small pieces on the go to stop me going mad!

The Slashed Doublet

  I have always been drawn to Tudor costume and the slashed patterns in the fabric. Some years ago I went to an exhibition of costume at the Queens' Gallery and there was a beautiful little jacket with bound edged slashes all edged with french knots.The level of detail was extraordinary and I squirreled it away in my mind for another time! Five years later the opportunity arose to have a go and so I tried to put as much detail into my little panel as in that doublet. The panel is part of a piece of work made for my medical residency where I have created objects to draw parallels between the worlds of textiles and surgery.

 For this panel I layered organza over taffeta to create a shot effect. There were three smaller panels which formed the final square and each piece was hand bound, gathered, slashed and embroidered. The panels were then laced together with silk ribbon tipped with silver aiguillettes.

Lots to tell

  It is very rare that I talk about the medical work on this blog for fear or frightening people away ! but I can share some details of my new piece with you now as it's all about embroidery and colour. I have created a folding cube toy which has nine embroidered or raised surfaces inspired by costume detail. It illustrates how surgeons understand some of the body by using conceptual space, if you need to know more then click here for my medical blog. I will devote a few posts to this beginning here with some 18thC trimming techniques.
 Above we have a tiny length of passementerie known as fly fringe. I was looking at this on a dress at the V&A museum and have discovered that they were made by people who lived and worked near the silk weavers. They often worked together to provide matching trimmings for a customer as each length of silk was made in very small quantities. The button makers would be nearby too and I love to think of these creative and skilled communities working together, albeit probably unappreciated by the client!

  There is a pocket flap on this panel so it required a button. I made a covered bead as I often do for my stumpwork pieces and looked for some buttonhole inspiration. I settled on a couched buttonhole with metal thread set back slightly from a bound edged.

  The book I used for most of this piece was the V&A's 'Historical Fashion in Detail, the 17th and 18th Century', now in another format.