Music makes the world go round...

We're taking a break from my Sketchbook pages this post so I can show you my latest swap piece!

The theme for the December Phat Quarter Swap was Music. Immediately I thought of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album cover. I have wanted to experiment with pencil tinting in my work and the use of finer stitches, so this was the perfect opportunity.

I used no more than three strands of floss on this piece, and that was only for the metallic threads on the lightning bolt. The outlines were done using two strands and the hair and eyelashes used only one. I used backstitch, satin stitch and brick stitch on this piece. I like the simplicity of it and really liked the way the coloured pencils came out. I'm going to use this technique more in the future for sure!

Work In Progress Shots:

Pencil Tinting


One strand of floss for the eyelashes


Finished hair


Metallic threads for the lightning bolt


Satin stitch for the title

This piece went to Giggly Mama and I think she really liked it :-)

Enter the Labyrinth

Last month I took part in another swap on the Flickr group Phat Quarter. This time the theme was movies and straight away I knew I needed to do a piece based on Labyrinth. Labyrinth is my favourite movie OF ALL TIME!! I love David Bowie and always have because of this movie. I even realised in my early 20s that my fashion sense had been influenced by Sarah, the lead female character!

Luckily, my swap partner Lisa's Tea Time was open to me doing whatever I wanted so here is the result. I wanted to experiment with crayon tinting in this piece so created the background using crayons. If you look really closely you can see the labyrinth within the background. The colours were inspired by the movie poster and the sepia tones used for the labyrinth in the movie.

I wanted to express the power of David Bowie's character in the movie, Jareth the Goblin King, so thought very hard about what the main image would be. I chose to do a simple embroidery of just his eyes and the well known shape of his hair. His eyes and hair are really what make Jareth so recognisable. I embroidered this in simple black back stitch. I then embroidered the title of the movie in the font used on all the imagery associated with the movie. I used a harmonious beige to fit with the sepia tones of the labyrinth background.

The piece is backed on beige felt so it can be framed or stand alone. I'm really pleased with how it came out. At first I felt that it might have been too simple, but I think the simplicity aids the impact of the image.

I think I might have to sew a variation of this for myself soon, I love it so much and I know Lisa loved it too :-) Here's the photo she took when she received it:

I ♥ swaps!!