Color and Detail in Miniature Needlework
Sampler from the Betty Ring collection.
The recent exhibition and auction of Betty Ring’s needlework collection inspired me to try working a sampler in miniature. I had found myself attracted to a particular sampler that was identified as coming from the Canterbury area of New Hampshire. The ‘Canterbury’ samplers are characterized by the use of several similar motifs, birds, large baskets with flowers and by the fact that most of the larger motifs are outlined in black. They tend to be fairly busy pieces, the birds and flowers filling the areas surrounding the lettering blocks.
As I wanted to be able to include as much detail as possible, I decided to work on 72 ct silk gauze, that being the finest scale I could expect to see easily (with considerable magnification) and have a wide range of colored thread with which to work. Keeping to the same proportions, that gave me a workable area of 84 X 103 stitches, only about a third as many as the original. Obviously some detail was going to be lost in the translation, but I set out creating a chart, breaking the original into halves and quarters and transferring the elements to graph paper.
The first detail to go was the outlining-with only a few stitches with which to define a motif, there were none to spare for a black outline. You could expect to use a dark brown or black for some details, but an outline around each motif, was out of the question. Fairly happy with the amount of detail I was able to capture in the chart, I picked out some colors and started stitching the green hillocky area that goes across the bottom. Coming to the first fine details in that grassy area, I began to realize just how difficult defining them was going to be. With 72 stitches equalling an inch, how big is a leaf or flower that is only 3 or 4 stitches wide? About the size of a pinhead. Subtle color changes are not at all visible to the naked eye when comprised of stitches the size of pinholes. Color changes were going to have to be large and dramatic to read in such small scale.
The finished 1/12 scale sampler, still in need of blocking and framing. (1 3/16" X 1 7/16")
As I proceeded on, I came to another realization, just as a matter of course, when stitching you are totally focused on one tiny area at a time, then the magnification comes off and you evaluate the overall appearance and realize, the eye needs space to move around in even such a tiny composition. I could put in all the little details I had sketched in my chart, but they were going to make the sampler terribly busy and you would not see the individual elements. Other little details fell by the wayside leaving space between and around motifs that would enable the eye to move.
This is not my first time to this dance, but it seems if I do not work on my miniature stitching continuously, I must rediscover these ‘facts’ over and over again. I do feel that it ‘reads’ as a Canterbury sampler, but in future versions refinements may make it even more successful.
Can You Raku?
Jon Almeda with students, Guild School 2008.
What is raku? Raku is a process of firing pottery wherein a red-hot piece is withdrawn from the kiln and placed in a container with combustible materials-paper, sawdust or similar. The red-hot piece of pottery sets the combustible materials on fire and when the container is closed and the fire uses up all the oxygen inside the container, it begins to withdraw whatever oxygen it can from the glaze and the pot itself. That process is what causes the color changes to the clay and the glaze producing the beautiful and dramtic color one sees on raku fired pieces.
One of the most consistently awesome presentations on graduation night at Guild School is the display of the students in Jon Almeda’s pottery class. Some of these people have never worked in clay before and yet within a week, they have learned how to use a wheel, thrown several pots and fired and glazed them in the raku process. Each student has on display, a collection of pots and vases in spectacular colors of which to be very proud. When some of the other class presentations include pieces yet to be assembled, it is an impressive display.
Vase by Jon Almeda.
Jon Almeda is a multi-talented artist, a Fellow member of IGMA in recognition of his skillful work in miniature ceramics. If you’ve ever seen Jon at a show, you know it is impossible to walk past his display without noticing the striking work he has become well known for. Unique shapes with crisp detailing, his vases and bowls stand out with dramatic and colorful glazes. Jon excels equally as a teacher, always a smiling, friendly face about the campus, eager to share his love of ceramics. Check out his work on his website and at his etsy shop, or sign up for the class and learn how to make it yourself.
Miniature Box-Style Tape Loom | Bonni Backe
Box-Style Tape Loom in 1/12 scale by Bonni Backe of Weevings. Class project, Guild School 2012.
When I’m thinking about taking a class, I look for a class where I will learn multiple skills, and the sort of skills that will be of use in the work I do. This little tape loom would be just the sort of thing I would be interested in. Bonni Backe, an IGMA Fellow member whom you may know as the artist behind Weevings, will be teaching the construction of this miniature box-style loom at Guild School this coming June. In the class you will learn basic woodworking skills and how to weave the sort of tapes that would have been woven on this type of loom in the parlors of homes in the 18th and 19th century. You will weave the tapes on a full-size inkle loom and thread a partially completed tape onto the loom to look as it would have if it had actually been woven on the miniature loom in the first place.
Miniature passamenterie trims, most made on a full size inkle loom, Guild School 2009.
I’ve taken a couple of classes with Bonni, and they have inspired my work. Learning how to weave these tapes, and other decorative trims on the inkle loom greatly increased the options from which I can choose to decorate the furniture I make. Inkle loom weaving was also the starting point from which I learned to make other passamenterie trims like tassels, fringe and braids. With enough time and perseverance, one could probably figure out the construction of most of these trims on your own, but what a pleasure it is to have someone who’s already worked it out pass on the skills in the classroom. It frees you to move forward to apply those skills, and even to improve upon them with your own creativity.
