Having a cross stitch: Big Brownie Birthday Edition!

As I have mentioned I am a member of Girlguiding UK and this year marks 100 years of Brownies. This event has spawned a lot of projects and keepsake items and one that caught my eye was cross stitch patterns. There was a set of patterns for a Brownie, a Rainbow, a Guide and a Guider published in Cross Stitch magazine designed by Lucie Heaton. They were great but they didn't really represent my uniforms... So I adapted them!

Cross stitch isn't my usual medium of choice but I have done it in the past. I thought I'd give it a go for this project and attach the results to my new camp blanket. So far I have started my Guider and I will keep you posted on my progress :-)

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Cross Stitched Iphone Case

Do you remember a couple of months ago I said that I hadn't cross stitched in many a year? I was working on designs for an iPhone case and forgot to show you the finished piece - so here it is!

I hand painted the aida with acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium to get my own custom colour. I did this on 14 count and actually really enjoyed it. I didn't find it quite as freeing as hand embroidery though so I think I will stick to that :-)

Here it is finished and flat...

and here it is on the phone. Unfortunately the case I had it in broke and I can't find one that will shut properly around my phone with the embroidery in it :-( If you hear of one, let me know!

Sea Gypsy

You know those Home Sweet Home samplers that you see? You know how you expect to see them? Well, I decided to put my own spin on it. This was how Sea Gypsy was born. My home is not really bricks and mortar. My home, I suppose, is a cruise ship. It is a different one every time, but it is home for the space of time I am on it. When I am between contracts I go back to my parents house to visit, granted, but it's not really where I live anymore. I don't really live anywhere but the sea.

I took the Home Sweet Home concept and fit it to my lifestyle. Instead of using the usual house motif, I used a ship. Sprawling mountains range behind it and the sea swirls around the hull.

I used a verigated thread that reminded me of the art work on the side of the first ship I worked on (and, actually, the ship I just got off of). I experimented with waste canvas so that I could cross stitch the recognised phrase down the side of the ship, as if it were the art work itself. The rest of the piece is my usual embroidery, bringing myself and the traditional together.

This piece is simple in both it's style and execution, however, the meaning behind it is quite complex and full, particularly to me. And that's what art is really about.

I don't think I've cross stitched for about 10-15 years...

Goodness! I've got very behind in blog posting! However, you will be pleased to know that I have been working on lots of projects so there are several things that need writing about!

Let's start with my new iPhone cover.... and my new iPhone! I had an HTC but didn't like it much so I've got myself an iPhone 3G now instead. I know it's not the newest one but I wanted one that uses regular sim cards, not the micro ones for when I am in the US. I LOVE it! I am definitely a Mac! Along with all the amazing things you can do with a iPhone, another draw were the cross stitch-able cases I had seen. I went looking for them online and found this awesome tutorial on making your own on Wee Little Stitches blog. This blog is awesome and I encourage you to check it out. They also have an Etsy shop where they sell cross stitch patterns of Pixel People. They have a great range but they didn't quite have ones that I really wanted to use.... so I designed my own!

Jareth the Goblin King

Jem from Jem and the Hologram and She-Ra

I played around with some graph paper and, even though I haven't cross stitched in about 10-15 years or used a cross stitch pattern in that time, I came up with these. I quite like both so might have to stitch up both and rotate them!

Wish me luck!!

This one is for the ladies....

Over the summer I purchased a needle felting attachment for my beloved Bernina. I also found out about the Capture Cure charity auction which was accepting donated works of art to auction off in aid of breast cancer. My mother and best friend from high school are both recovering from breast cancer so this was a cause near to my heart.

I created a needle felted and embellished wall hanging that is a tribute to the strength of women. It uses skills taught to me by the women in my family and the new techniques I have learned after being inspired by them. Only 40 pieces were accepted into the auction, mine being one of them. I am fiercely proud of this and hope it went to a good home.

I am also about to start a little cross stitch I downloaded, designed by Emily Peacock. It is a pink breast cancer ribbon which I am going to make for myself and my mother. I haven't followed a cross stitch pattern in a while so it will be interesting to try that out again! I encourage you to go and get the pattern yourself and donate to breast cancer research in the process. Check out the Mr X Stitch post about it here

Alicia Ross - Hot Mess

Phrenology Study of Miley Cyrus

I haven't been very far out of Manhattan - I've gone as far as Union Square and the Guggenheim! - but when I saw the post on Mr X Stitch for an embroidery exhibition in Brooklyn, I figured I had to go.

Black & White Gallery

It was well worth it! The work of Alicia Ross is phenomenal. I was the only one in the Black & White Gallery this Sunday morning, which gave me the opportunity to really look at and scrutinise the pieces.

Phrenology Study of Lindsey Lohan

First displayed are Ross's portraits. They range from densely cross-stitched pieces that look like photos, to more simple offerings they use colour to express their form. I was taken by the use of stitches and thread that Ross exhibits. Most of the piece is executed in regular cross stitch but texture is added with areas of single line stitches, sometimes even long strands of thread stitched from one area of the composition to another. Her portrait pieces, displayed in oval frames reminiscent of mirrors, made me look at femininity and it's link to needlework. All the portraits were of women, as if the medium were depicting that which it represents. However, each woman was different, showing the real diversity of our sex.

Ross's portraits are really, for me, only the tip of her work. Further back in the space you find her bondage pieces. There were two very distinct types of these. Two pieces were stitched on black cotton and quite formally showed women's faceless bodies bound in painful looking positions. The bodies were densely cross stitched, while an un-parted strand of red thread was used to show their bondage. I particularly liked how the thread disappeared off the edge of the canvas so you could not see the captor.

The second set of bondage pieces were more subtle in their depiction, but some of my favourite pieces. A woman's head and torso, her arms raised in anguish, are shown in vivid tones, actual pins crossed through her wrists. Whole, red thread circles her womb and shoots off from it suggesting the pain only women can feel. In a second piece the woman is bound and apparently suspended in the air. However, she is only bound by a single six-strand embroidery thread. The emotions infused in the piece make this thread seem like leather bonds holding her in place. These pieces being to mind the constraints put on women by the 'feminine ideal'. Their depiction in embroidery shows how this medium is considered part of the constraints.

Section of Thank God for Science (Octomom Phrenology Study)

I found one piece intriguing. The meaning I found behind it is possibly not what the artist was trying to say, but interesting non the less. A woman's profile, her lips pursed, is surrounded by the portraits of young babies, each in different colours. This, to me, felt like another constraint. Women are expected to have children and become mothers. This woman is surrounded by babies - are they what she wishes for, or something that scares her?

Philosophy Devouring Uranus

Finally, my to favourite pieces in the exhibition were displayed side by side. A bird of pray stands over the naked body of a woman. The top half of the body is missing, a bloody ruin depicted by strands of red thread attached to the bird. In the second piece, the woman's body is again on the ground, the top half bloody and being devoured by a wolf. Such levels of violence shouldn't be seen in cross stitch. We should be stitching kittens and flowers.... but that's the art of it!

Motherboard_11 (Down Boy)

Ross's pieces were breathtaking, I spent quite some time looking at which stitches she used, how she divided her thread to make textures and statements alike. I am inspired to be a better stitcher and a better artist after seeing this exhibition and will be keeping an eye out for more of her work!

Check out more of Alicia's work at her website here

If you are in the area, I suggest you go check out this exhibition before it ends on 21st November: Black & White Gallery, Brooklyn