Rob & Jame: Week 5

Rob & Jame's Update:
As cooler weather begins to appear in NYC, Rob has spent the past couple of weeks reflecting on the warmer climate of Florida, where both he and Jame carry out their field work. Over the next several months, Rob will work on a large embroidery depicting a shoreline’s change in color palette when they switch to turtle-friendly lighting in beachside residences. Here's some information on his first embroidery resulting from The Bridge:

To prepare for the larger embroidery project, I wanted to test out some new stitches, which I have never used before, on a smaller scale. Before, I go into more detail on different embroidery stitches I used, here’s the final product:

Sometimes, even before the first stitch, I lightly trace the design onto the piece of fabric using a pencil. For this project, I just dove right in, and began with the palm tree, building the rest of the piece around a central image. For the bark of the palm tree, I used a running stitch. This stitch is useful for giving a little bit of texture, without completely filling in an area - not one I’ve used too often, but I thought the pattern was perfect for tree bark. Just behind the tree, I used a chain stitch to form the billowy clouds. This is one of the more complicated stitches I incorporated, and you might recognize it as the stitch that is used to tailor the hem on most jeans.

The last close-up contains three different stitches, one of which we’ve seen before...can you pick it out? Starting from the top, the split stitch is perfect for filling in blocks of dense color. To make this stitch, start out with a running stitch, and instead of jumping ahead ¼ inch, bring the needle and thread up through the stitch you just made, then move ahead. I use the split stitch very often. In the middle layer is the now familiar chain stitch. And below that, the seed stitch is a (somewhat) random scatter of embroidery thread, as if casting out a handful of seeds.

This is just a small sampling of stitches that can be incorporate into embroideries. Do you have a favorite fiber art project that you’re working on, or planning, for the winter months?  Let us know in the comments! ​

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