Toms Diner

My last post featured the piece I made for the &Stitches swap and this is the piece I received in return. It was made by the fabulously talented Broidrage who in her own words is a New York pop culture junkie so it was fitting that she stitched me a NY icon; Toms Diner- y'know the one from the Suzanne Vega song and from Seinfeld.

It was a perfect choice for the 'Places' theme and I love it!

Battersea Power Station

Over at &Stitches there has been a swap going on. The theme was places and I was assigned a lovely partner who makes the most awesome things. After much ummming and ahhhhing I decided to make an embroidery of a British landmark- Battersea Power Station but given a bit of a twist. I have stitched it as a silhouette filled in with fossils for no other reason than 'fossil fuels'. Now I know that these fossils probably aren't the type commonly found in coal (a quick google suggests coal has mainly fossilized ferns) but I chose ones I liked and thought would look good. The main part is using silks but I switched to white embroidery floss for the famous white chimneys. When I first finished it I wasn't all that sure whether I liked it but looking at it now I think it was quite successful. 

I had to send it a bit crumpled because the purple fabric pen was taking a long time to fade out - you can see it round the chimneys above, and I didn't want to risk 'setting' it with a hot iron (I have know idea whether it would does anyone know?). Hopefully my partner won't mind a few wrinkles

I'll be back soon to share what I received from my partner.

Work in Progress

WIP

This is what's in my hoop at the moment, a few years ago I made something similar for a swap and I really liked it. My style of stitching is more intricate these days and I have altered the face to give better detail. I might have to unpick some of his skinny leg later if it looks too odd and give him more muscle!

It is also a lot bigger than the original, when finished it will fill an A4 frame.

I am using a dark grey floss, I am tending to use dark greys, browns or blues for this style of single colour embroidery. I just prefer it to black right now, but I may well go back to black at some point in the future.

The lines I'm following are drawn on faintly in pencil- I just draw on the outline and freestyle the rest - I'm using a print out of my original for my pattern and tweaking it as I go along (the original was drawn from a vintage photo of boxers and a photos of hares)

the original