Ellen Lindner: Art & Creativity

This hand stitching is fun!  Especially since I’m doing everything very free form, with a minimum of planning.

I have limited expertise with hand embroidery, so I searched online for some stitch tutorials.  I found Sharon Boggon’s excellent stitch directory, as well as her stunning examples.  Some of Sharon’s pieces are heavily textured with stitches literally piled on top of each other.  I immediately loved this look and decided to go for something similar.

I started by stitching a 5″ x 7″ outline.  It seemed to me that some background stitching was in order, so I added that, as well.  I plan to frame the finished piece with an 8″ x 10″ portion showing.  Therefore, I folded the fabric to these approximate dimensons – just to help me judge the scale.

Click any image for a larger view.

(This piece will probably have a vertical orientation, but most photos will be shown horizontally.)

I wanted my stitching to represent movement, in response to a group challenge.  So, I sketched and stitched an undulating line with this in mind.

 I had no idea how to go about designing an embroidered piece like this.  I studied some online examples and then  just jumped in and started stitching shapes that I thought would be appropriate for the background.  (The buttonhole wheels shown above were too open for my liking.  I later filled them in with more spokes.)

Randomly selecting from my palette of threads, I continued working the background of the line shape.

The colors were looking a little hodge podge at this point.  However, I wasn’t concerned, since I knew they’d later be covered with lots of french knots, bullion knots, and beads.  And besides, I was having fun!

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  If you didn’t already click on the link for stunning examples, you really should.  Very cool stuff!