tiny owl

Last month I've added one more to my considerable list of bird-pieces.
This time I pieced together a tiny owl
The tiniest of all owls,
not much bigger than a blackbird !

I made my first bird, a robin,
in the Stitch Club workshop by Many Pattullo
in December 2020.

She often re-uses pieces of old quilts
as a background in her work, but I piece mine together
with varies pieces and leftovers in the colours that I need
that I baste to a slightly bigger cotton background.
For the bird I start to look at many photographs
and then make a sketch of the position I like best,
to have a template to build up the bird with snippets of fabric.

Then comes the job of stitching all these tiny pieces together
(hmmmm, fiddly business)

When and eyes, beak, feet and some "feather-stitches" are added
I just have to make some extra stitches in the background.

The last task is painting a 20 x 20 cm canvas
and stitch the finished piece onto it !
(ohh, that last bit still has to be done !)

Ketikoti

July 1 is the day that is celebrated in Suriname
(and also here in The Netherlands)
to remember the abolition of slavery
(in 1863)
"Ketikoti" means in Sranantongo (Suriname's main language) : "broken chains"

On many Sundays these past months
we have been busy with the community stitch project
"Draden van ONS"

 In our province Zuid-Holland are many places
where people can participate, using felt,
quilting or embroidery.
I am one of the assistants in Rotterdam ( near Schiedam)
The design, made to look like stained glass windows,
is cut in small parts and then cloth, felt or stitch are added
and when finished assembled in bigger parts to put on the big screen.

Stitching on this big scale requires two people
that stitch as a team : one in front of the big screen
and one at the back.

If you live near Rotterdam
come and work with us :

Gustoweg 83

On Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays

balls

Early May we had the Stitch Club workshop by (the Dutch)
Mirjam Gielen
making a six-segment object.

I chose some purples from my stash
and special fabric I bought last year on a textile fair.

Then came the fun part to decorate them.
On the turquoise one I started with woven picots
(always so much fun to make)
and then I added seed beads in the colours of the hexagons.

For number two I decided on stacked running stitch.

Of course a running stitch is easy BUT
if you want them really close together a lot more is asked.
And you can only do a few rounds with one length of thread . . .
so filling this ball took "ages" !!!
The different reds go nicely with the purple.

More than halfway down I changed the pattern
into small dots.

After this workshop we had some "quiet time"
and, to be honest I liked that very much.
As a Stitch Club member from the very start
I'm amazed in how many workshop I participated !
(and to be even more honest : not everything is finished,

there are still quite a few WIPs to be considered   :-/  )

This last week we had something new and fun though :
zoom sessions with a lot of SC members from all over the world

and it was so much FUN to see each other and stitch a bit together !
Those were wonderful events
a fantastic STITCH COMMUNITY !

little Venus

For the Stitch Club workshop by
Christi Johnson
(making a soft sculpture talisman)
I re-made the Venus of Willendorf.

The little statuette of this a woman was excavated in Austria in 1908.
Between 25.000 and 30.00 years old, with her lovely hairdo, big boobs and belly

we can only guess and speculate what purpose she had,
but many think she might have been a symbol of fertility.

With her size of a good 11 cm,
my Venus is almost the same size as the original one.
That one was made of oolitic limestone,
a kind of rock that was traced back to northern Italy.
In the rock are many tiny particles even of shells,
so I thought my little seed stitches were perfect for that !
Similar looking figurines are mostly made of ivory (mammoth tusk)

Making the first stitches

After making the front and back I could sew them together
leaving a small opening for stuffing.

The original Venus was coloured with the sacred red ochre
but mine is much more colourful
just like the "look-a-like" Nana's
Niki de Saint Phalle made so many years ago ! 

faces (2) and community stitching

After a quiet birthday,
with some very sweet presents,
there was time for more faces for Emma Cassi 's workshop.
Sometimes things go smoothly "with no effort at all"
sometimes you struggle with even the smallest decisions.

My third "mask/face" brooch was the latter.
Up until I found the translucent shell shape sequins
in a very cheap box in my stash . . .
after that it all went well, so funny !

I called it a "Fire Keeper"

(though many SC-members said it reminded them of a fish !!)
Hmmmm at least a fish with an attitude
that's for sure !

And because they are rather small
(and I had more choice in beads and sequins)
there even came a fourth one.

This one I called "Gilgamesh"
Though he wasn't a very nice person to start with,
I was very fond of the illustrations of Ludmila Zeman
(Czech by birth, now living in Canada)

*

This whole month I have also been busy in ROTTERDAM with a BIG
community stitching project
it is called :

DRADEN  VAN  ONS  NEDERLANDSE  SLAVERNIJVERLEDEN

(I put in the link for our province Zuid-Holland
you can also find the dates and address we are working there !!!)

Other cities where they are working on this HUGE wall hanging are
Delft, Dordrecht, The Hague, Leiden and Gouda.

This is the part for Dordrecht and Rotterdam.

There were other participants, but we could always use more "hands"

for stitching, felting and embroidery, not difficult work but very rewarding !
Together with Gerine I supervise the work there, also with the 
all-over coordinator Caroline Grootenboer
The 7 meters long part for us, has been stretched on a big frame.

The work to cut out a part of the big pattern
and filling it with pieces of fabric, felt of making embroidery stitches
had to be for us to try (and experience difficulties) too !

So : homework !

I think it is very special being able to participate in this project !

friday faces

Just two small faces to show :

the Emma Cassi workshop of Stitch Club
was masks / faces in beads.

They "should" be bigger,
but I liked the brooch size more.

(on to the next one !)

more transparent

 The dear Emily Tull came by in Stitch Club again.
I love her work and her workshops !
She is a very talented "thread painter".
This time the subject wasn't (a part of) a portrait
but a fish : a sardine, or any other fish
(or any other subject)
This time I chose a hummingbird because they also
have iridescent colours, much like fish scales.

"Violet crowned Woodnymph"

Amazing these tiny colourful birds, who sadly only live
on the American continent.

Working on water soluble with tiny snippets :
very fiddly !!!
But in the end it was worth it !

*

In the garden the first shift of colours "

the YELLOW aconites, WHITE snowdrops and the LILAC crocuses are gone

 

and the first bits of BLUE arrived !

I LOVE spring !