Sister Suffragette!

I got another square finished! I have had this one planned for a while but only just got around to stitching it. This is my tribute to the women who put themselves on the line to allow me to vote - I thank you!

Hand embroidery and fused appliqué on cotton.

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Finally getting some stitching done!

Hello! It has been too long!!

Well, with my new job/ career blooming I am finding less and less time to make things for myself... I decided a stop needed to be put to that! I also have a bunch of projects in progress. So, as I am planning on moving into my own place over the summer I need some artiness to make it my own. Add all of this together and I have decided I need to finish my Feminist Statement quilt. I'm going to make it a wall hanging and I began by finishing my Frida Kahlo square. What do you think?

Hand embroidery on cotton. Frida Kahol painting on printable cotton.
It needs a good iron mind!!

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Women of Influence

Goodness! It has been a while since I posted but I have had so many projects, crafty and otherwise, on the go that I've got a bit behind. I've been working on family tree research, which has taken up quite a bit of my time and is very interesting. At some point I will have to share some of the best bits here. I have also been doing a little bit of stitching, the first piece of which I will share with you now.

My Women of Influence quilt square will be part of my Feminist Statement quilt.... when I finish it! It's one of those WIPs that goes on forever.... but I digress. Looking back at my childhood I have noticed many things that had shaped who I am today. Two of these things are She-Ra and Jem from Jem and the Holograms. Though both of these women are only cartoon characters I think they influenced my a lot - strong women who know what they want. She-Ra helps those in need and Jem has a fabulous wardrobe haha! So they both had to feature on my quilt. I wanted them to be on the same square as they are from the same era and the same media.

I've had the image of this square in my head and sketched out in my sketchbook for a while but finally got the chance to realise it now. I used a simple back stitch so the colours and the image itself were the main focus.

I used only three strands of thread at the most for the main outlines then striped down to one or two strands for the details and features. I'm always concerned about how facial features come out in my stitching but I think these came out ok.

This was a pretty simple embroidery piece but I think it will be one of my favourites in the quilt when it is completed!

More Jem embroidery to come!!!

Art: From Enchantment To Down

One More Trophy - Pocahontas

I stumbled across a blog post on BUST magazine's website the other day from a few months ago but wanted to write about it here. Check out the original post here.

Just a Trap - Alice


My Sweet Prince - Snow White

Thomas Czarnekis is a photography artist and in his latest series he takes Disney princesses and places them in doomed situations. The writer of the original blog post I read about this seemed quite offended by these images but they made me think.

Happy End - The Little Red Riding Hood


On The Other Shore - The Little Mermaid

I have never see the Disney Princesses as images of frail women who needed men to function. To me they are women going after what they want, some to me seem stronger than others but I have never seen them as contrary to my strong feminine beliefs. Apparently some people do and the art of Czarnekis has strengthened this concept, even making people look at the art as if it condones violence towards women because they are fragile.

Too Fast - Cinderella


Not So Romantic - Beauty and the Beast

I don't see it this way. To me it seems that it is shattering an image of perfection that women cannot live up to. Perhaps even a perfection that our modern world makes it difficult to manifest. These images may even represent the destruction of the frail feminine in our modern world because our modern ideals break it down. Also, a very good point was made in a comment on the original BUST blog post - these stories were not written by Disney. Fairy Tales were stories of violence, danger and abuse used as warnings. Perhaps these images harp back to those origins as well.

Naughty Girl - Sleeping Beauty


One Last Wish - Jasmine

I like these images - I do not think they promote violence towards women or make women seem frail. Instead they make you think, which is really what art is supposed to be about.

To see them on Czarneckis' website go here.
To see a further post on the on DesignBoom go here

Feminism Has Fought No Wars

I can't remember where I first saw the inspiration for this quilt square - it was either on Mr X Stitch or during a search on Flickr. Anyway, a while ago I saw this piece of embroidery based on a quote by Dale Spender from her book For The Record: The Making And Meaning of Feminist Knowledge. The Quote reads thus:

Feminism has fought no wars.
It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties.
It's battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety on the streets, for childcare, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women's refuges, reforms in the law.

I thought the piece was beautifully executed, but most of all the quote was poignant. I decided to use it in my own way on my Feminist Statement Quilt.

Second attempt at layout

As I have mentioned before, I have read The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker and was interested in the way samplers were used to 'train' women in the feminine ways. I decided to create my own sampler around the quote. I wanted to use shades of pink for the colour scheme to keep within the stereotypical feminine frame.

Work in Progress - text finished

The amount of text I was using posed a problem. I had not stitched this amount of text before and started off having trouble getting the size right. I wanted to fit the text in the space of the square, but not have it too small that when stitched it would be illegible. The piece you see here is actually my second attempt - the first having smaller text. After I had already stitched up half the text I decided it was too small to read properly. I threw it in a drawer for a few days until I could bring myself to start again. I want to do the piece right after all!

Top banner in progress

I drew out the top and bottom banners by hand, using a pattern that I felt would be thought of as 'feminine'. However, I wanted to use a few different decorative stitches on this piece. It seemed like a good opportunity to play with some new ones! I left straight lines in the design of the piece to be filled in with decorative stitches later.

Detail showing the variety of stitches

I found a couple of interesting stitches in The Embroidery Stitch Bible by Betty Barnden. I used Portugese border stitch with a backstitch through the centre and coral stitch along with my usual backstitch for the text and split stitch, whipped split stitch and satin stitch for the main borders top and bottom.

The finished piece

After a false start I like the way this piece came out. In a way it is my own training sampler. I spent time on it and forced myself to try something new instead of staying in the safe confines of the stitches I use regularly. It may not have instilled a sense of the feminine in me, but it has allowed me to explore new knowledge and skills.

Finally, my Phat Quarter Movie Swap piece was shown in this Mr X Stitch blog post... go check it out!!

I Don't Wanna Be Friends... (Free Embroidery Pattern!)

Another quilt square finished! This one is based on a doodle I did during rehearsal one day. I thought it would work well with a Lady Gaga quote so added it in. I had to add Lady Gaga to my quilt as she is the representation of personal style and theatrical fashion... plus she's a woman who doesn't give a damn what you think!

I sketched out the pattern and added the wording in Photoshop. I wanted to use a variety of stitches on this piece. Backstitch would highlight the wording and outline of the flames nicely, but I needed something feathery for the wings and something stronger for the heart.

I decided to limit the colour palette to purple black and silver to harmonise with the background fabric. I used a whipped chain stitch for the heart and long and short stitch for the wing feathers. It was my first time doing long and short stitch and it was a little difficult within the shapes of the feathers, but I think it came out pretty well!!

To fill the flames I used seed stitch in purple metallic thread. I found Thread Heaven very useful with the metallic threads! My only deviation from the colour scheme was on the crown, which needed to be gold :-)

This piece came out exactly as I pictured it in my head. I had a little accident with it when my room steward (that's a ship thing!) managed to bleach some bits of it with cleaner.... luckily the fine pink speckles are only visible to me....

Gaga is going to make a great edition to my quilt - why don't you give it a go? I've turned to doodle into an embroidery pattern which you can find in my Flickr photostream here - enjoy!

I Promise That I Will Do My Best...

I was reading a blog post on the BUST website the other day and felt that I needed to comment on it.

http://www.bust.com/blog/2010/09/10/the-un-godly-girl-scouts.html

Hans Zeiger, a Republican candidate for Washington’s House of Representatives (yes, I know I'm British and have no idea what that means, but I do understand that he feels he has influence) had this comment to make about Girl Scouts:

"the Girl Scouts allow homosexuals and atheists to join their ranks, and they have become a pro-abortion, feminist training corps"

At home, we have Brownies and Girl Guides instead of Girl Scouts, but it's the same thing. I am a Girl Guide. I started as a Brownie and was a Seconder (the only reason I wasn't a Sixer was because I joined late), then went into Girl Guides and was Patrol Leader of the Kingfishers for a long time. We didn't have a Rangers company at that time so I went on to be a Young Leader and Pack Leader of the Brownies I had formerly attended. At the age of 17 I started work on my Leader program and as soon as I turned 18 I became a full fledged Leader. I now also have my Pack Holiday Licence, which means I can legally take a Brownie Pack on holiday.

Being part of Guiding has influenced my life. It has made me the strong, independent woman that I am today. It has taught me leadership skills, how to care for and support others and how to be organised and prepared. These are all things that are essential to my career and my life. In my eyes this is not 'feminist training', it is teaching young women how to be themselves and giving them the essential skills to be successful in their lives. If that scares you, Mr. Zeiger, then so be it.

More to the point, Guiding is fun! How dare you diminish that!

I had already decided to make a Girl Guiding square for my feminist quilt, now I am even more committed to it :-)

If you would like to know more about Girl Guiding UK or the Girl Scouts of America, visit these sites:

Girlguiding UK

Girl Scouts of America

Any Which Way You Can

I finished another embroidered square for my quilt! This one is based on a lyric from the Scissor Sisters song 'Any Which Way' off of their new album 'Night Work':

"I'm gonna find that man the right shade of bottle tan, who smells like cocoa butter and cash"

I really liked the statement, a woman can go find whatever man she wants, be it a millionaire or a nuclear physicist :-)

I decided that I wanted the bronzed torso of a man in sunglasses to be the image to go with this lyric. I used orange cotton for the background to emphasise the image of a 'bottle tan'. I embroidered the lyric in complimentary metallic blue thread.

I stayed quite simple with my stitches to emphasise the lines of the body. I used an off-kilter font for the lyric to add some personality to the speaker. Satin stitching the sunglasses was the most difficult part as I needed the thread to be thin enough that it didn't overwhelm the shape, but thick enough that it filled it. I think it came out pretty well! Let me know what you think...

On another embroidery note, my Phat Quarter swap piece from Vegkat came in the mail today!! It's a quote from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and I love it!! Thanks Vegkat!!!

Ooh, That's Sublime!

Jenny Hart’s website, Sublime Stitching is having a contest called the Combo Contest. The object is to combine three of her patterns in an interesting way and produce an embroidered piece.

I have always liked Jenny’s designs and have both of her books, but have not had an opportunity to use them. This was the perfect time! Now, my embroidered piece may not be the most innovative, but it will be the springboard for something much bigger.

I chose to use the patterns Country Cool, Pinups by Gil Elvgrin and the book Embroidered Effects. I chose a cowgirl, a sailor pinup and the feather girl from the book (which I have wanted to stitch for a long time). I put them together on a 20" by 20" square with the quote ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’. Each woman represents an aspect of myself.

The sailor pinup represents my love of nature and water and that I have been working on the sea for almost 4 years.

The feather girl represents my showgirl side, the entertainment industry that I work in and love, and the extrovert in me.

Finally, the cowgirl represents my hardworking side and my confidence.

I have decided to use this piece as the central square of an embroidered quilt that I plan to make. I need to create 20 more 10” by 10” squares all around the theme ‘Feminist Statement’. I want it to show the women and words that have influenced me throughout my life… so keep an eye out for the squares as I make them!