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Hand Embroidery - Blog Posts
A porcelain moth patch! He’s got a wingspan of about 2 1/2 inches.
Kalì nifta
I almost forgot about this little piece I embroidered a while ago but didn’t frame until last week. It’s inspired by a traditional song from south Italy where my dad’s from.
Song under the cut
Kalì nifta
Ti en glicea tusi nifta ti en òria
cìevò plonno pensèonta ‘ss'esena
C'ettù mpì ‘s ti ffenèstra ssu agàpi mu
tis kardia mmu su nifto ti ppena.
Larilò larilò lallerò, larilò larilò llà llà……
Evò panta ss'esena penseo
jati ‘sena, fsichi mmu ‘gapò
ce pu pao, pu sirno, pu steo
sti kkardìa panta sena vastò
Larilò larilò lallerò, larilò larilò llà llà……
Kali nifta se finno ce pao
plaia ‘su ti vo pirda prikò
ma pu pao, pu sirno pu steo
sti kkardia panta sena vastò.
Larilò larilò lallerò, larilò larilò llà llà……
Ti en glìcea tusi nìfta, ti en òria
C' evò e' plonno pensèonta ‘ss'esèna,
C'ettu-mpì ‘s ti' ffenèstra-ssu, agàpi-mu,
Sti kardia-mu su nìfto ti ppena.
Evò panta ss'èsena penseo
jatì' sena, fsichi-mmu ‘gapò
Ce pu pao, pu sìrno, pu steo,
sti kkardia panta sena vastò.
Lalallalalero...
And Finrod fell before the throne
Piece inspired by the Duel of Finrod and Sauron from the Lay of Leithian rock opera.
See under the cut for some more inspirations (and a Leithian photo dump)
The pics with the screen background come after I already started on my piece but they match perfectly the aesthetic I was going for and I just wanted to post them anyways.
Another big inspo was the art used for The Battle of Finrod and Sauron by Clamavi de Profundis, here’s a mediocre screenshot:
Last in my inspirations were several fanarts I saw on tumblr using the a similar colour scheme with abstract swirls to represent the song of power.
Long time no update. The second half of 2023 really ran me over until I was completely flat and all of my blood was gone. But I’m back babey! This is everything I finished in January 2024. Three embroidered hoops, three embroidered pins, and two collages. This doesn’t include the sketching and tie dyeing for future projects. Don’t know what kinda manic wave I’m riding but we’re gonna ride it till it crashes!
Work in progress
The golden beads were too small even for my smallest, thinnest needle so I had to put them one by one directly on the thread. Time consuming but so worth the hassle, and the blue bit is done!
Now I can start on the red part, with even more tiny beads!
Moon. Fabric and thread. Stitched from a photo my brother took.
“Oh well, whatever, never mind”
Who will love Aladdin Sane?
I firmly believe Edward Cullen would be an embroidery artist and he would give them as little gifts to his family and Bella
bella was lucky she didn’t have a cell phone of any kind because you know ya boi edward would be blowing up that phone 24-7 going “saw a snail today…. effervescent” or some shit equivalent
I saw a snail today... effervescent
A commission I made for a friend in 2019 of one of her plants.
‘Of Meadows and Blue Skies’ by Melody Money
‘Of Meadows and Blue Skies’ by Melody Money was a solo show at Visions Art Museum in San Diego in 2021 that now lives on the form of an online and video exhibition on the Visions website. Melody Money is a mixed media textiles artist who prides herself on attention to detail and is “motivated to take a medium that is traditionally worked on a smaller scale and expand it to a larger version” and that's evident in this show.
After Melody Money received her Fine Art degree from the University of Colorado, she went on to study prismatic colour theory at Rudolph Schaefer school of design, and this schooling in colour theory shines through throughout the show. This works’ colour pallet is almost exclusively bright warm blues, greens and yellows. Few of the pieces from this collection use colour pallets that could be described as realist. Instead, Money opts for the sort of colours that you could imagine a child choosing for a scribbled marker pen landscape that features a buttercup yellow sun in the corner of the page. It’s clear that these colours, maybe even more so them the actual pieces themselves, were designed to invoke a child-like wonder and love for nature.
Money’s piece ‘field studies’ is more reminiscent of a sample board than a fine art piece but that makes me love it even more. The piece itself is a 4 x 10 grid of textiles field studies, these studies are predominantly beaded embroideries of local wildlife like birds, butterflies and various flora. Money clearly prefers creatures that fly as, apart from one solitary fish, all the animals depicted have wings of some variety. I do not find this preference shocking as the sky is a constant reoccurring character in her work, always lovingly decorated with swirling winds. This piece being a series of studies and not one final piece makes the work seem a lot more personal to Money, I feel like I am witness to a before unseen part of her process which is both greatly endearing and gives greater context to the rest of the work in this collection.
Money uses beading throughout these pieces, most significantly in ‘Rain’ but also rather heavily in ‘Field Studies’. All the beads she has chosen have either an iridescent or metallic quality to them, this means that in the bright lights these pieces shine. In ‘Field Studies’ a trio of blue iridescent swallows pull your focus immediately and in ‘Rain’ the whole lower third of the piece is alight, shimmering with silver bead work. These circles of beads and stitch create pools and puddles of rain that reflect both the faux, stitched light in the piece as well as the real, dynamic light of the exhibition space. Melody Money has said that light is the key to making her art sing, and I couldn't agree more, the beading on both these pieces would have been significantly less impactful and appealing had she opted for dull beads; it would have completely lost the magical shifting colours of the swallows and apparent glow and movement of the pooled water. The effect that light has on these pieces and really all of Money’s work make it such a shame I was only able to view this exhibition in the form of consistently lit photos and a lower quality than I would have liked video. I do think her work is lovely but to have seen her work in reality, especially in shifting sun light, would have been something else entirely.
‘Rain’ is an incredibly dynamic work, though the art itself is ever-stationary. Money’s use of layered vertical strips of differing shades of blue draws your eyes up and down the piece. This paired with the influx of cascading, downward-pointing triangles, which colours fade from navy to white, creates a faux sense of gravity, like the fabric rain is really falling. This effect and the way that Money has achieved it is beautiful and, in my opinion, makes ‘Rain’ the most visually stimulating piece in the collection.
By comparison, ‘Chant’ at first glance is a much simpler work; the colour pallet is more muted, and it lacks the flashy beading and intricate forms of some of the other pieces. Instead, most of the piece is made up of layers of silk shaded fields. From a distance this embroidery looks simply like blended colour, but up close the individual threads are evident and reminiscent of thousands of single plants and grasses. Due to the simplicity of the design of this piece, the intensity of the silk shading shines through. The most impressive element is the scale of the piece and volume of stitches - this amount of embroidery is a feat to undertake. But what I can only assume is dozens and dozens of hours of work has absolutely payed off, as all these dense stitches create this sense of never-ending, empty fields. This feeling is accented by the inclusion by seventeen beads of small iridescent birds in flight, up over the fields into the waiting bright blue sky above. These tiny birds seem little and insignificant in scale, compared to the force of nature that surrounds them, to a degree that I can’t help but feel small alongside them.
‘Of Meadows and Blue Skies' is undeniably a love letter in fabric and thread to the ever-changing natural world that surrounds Money’s home in Colorado. Having grown up in an environment similarly surrounded by nature, Money’s work really speaks to me, it reminds me of the importance of enjoying and protecting the wild spaces around us. Money says in her artist statement “I try to shine a light on everyday moments” and for me she does that both completely and beautifully.
Something incredibly satisfying about knowing your craft and the confidence that goes with it. Just the casual “yeah I could make that”. Want a band tee? Yeah I can embroider my own with the lyrics I want. Bridesmaid dress too long? Yeah I can hem it. Need new slippers? Yeah I can crochet a pair (and give them bunny ears). And of course it’s not perfect but nothing beats that feeling of being able to craft your own solution with your own two hands
Small project. Embroidered a patch to cover the missing logo plate on this old phone.