When I made the practice sample and was thinking about what I could make with prairie points as a resolved piece, I thought of dinosaurs, spiky extra-terrestrials (Star Wars or Doctor Who) and then as Christmas is approaching, I decided that my sample would have a purpose and be a Christmas tree as the points resemble the structure of a fir tree which when embroidered could be a decorated tree and possible be something that can be passed on through my family. Anyway, that was the starting point.
So I made a paper mock-up which is shown alongside my finished piece and it made me realise that I had taken on quite a task as I'd have to make over 100 points. I used over two metres of felt.
In order to be supported I decided to use pellet Vilene as an understructure, green felt as my fabric and mostly metallic Madeira threads for embroidery. I chose a bronzy gold, red and blue metallics to represent baubles, green metallic thread to represent the traditional holly and ivy, a variegated blue, red yellow thread to represent the berries of autumn, silver stars for the night sky, gold stars for the star of Bethlehem and the gold gift and a variegated gold and soft coloured thread just because I like it. I used a 100 needle throughout
The bottom of the Vilene was painted with red acrylic paint and hung to dry for 24 hours. This was to fill the gaps between the bottom layer of points and when asked why red and not green like the tree, I replied that the woodland elves who live in the tree were having a party and had red fairy lights!
I decided That the tree was best constructed on flat Vilene whereas I had made a card cone for the mock-up which was stuck together with sellotape and would not work for the stitched sample.
I measured the distance between each side of the cone at the base and decided to start with 20cm points. These were gradually reduced in size so that at the top of the tree they are 10cm.
First two layers of Prairie Points stitched to painted Vilene
Detail of first two layers
I reversed the points on each alternate row and gradually built it up, determining at the end of each two layers, the dimensions of the points for the following two and gradually decreasing the size. As I progressed up the tree, I was able to reduce the amount of rows of embroidery as the points grew smaller. Having started with eight rows of stitch, the top layers only contain four rows.
Approaching the top of the tree after applying ten layers of points
Detail of first eight layers of points
As the felt was four layers thick when made into points, it somewhat lost it's shape. I had pressed the edges prior to stitching to help keep crispness but as the tree was to be conical, the crispness of the points would eventually be reduced.
As with the mock-up, I decided to top the tree with a conical 'hat'. I shaped a piece of felt and using all of my threads, stitched rows of the leaf pattern previously stitched in green in each. I then stitched a seam in the top ensuring that it covered the edges of the top layer of points.
The finished tree alongside the smaller mock-up
The tree from above.
I intend to connect the sides of the cone with ribbons which will be tied on bows making pretty detail down the seam but for the moment it is connected with Microstitch tacks. The ability for the bows to be undone will enable the tree to be stored flat between seasons.
And finally,
A fairy who was at the elves' party popped out to say, happy stitching!
No comments:
Post a Comment