Stumpwork – Page 2

Upcoming Exhibitions, Workshops and Commissions

Posted by Mother Eagle on August 21, 2017 in Art, Embroidery, My Work, Shop Update, Thoughts

Upcoming Exhibitions, Workshops and Commissions

Lots of exciting news happening with me at Mother Eagle Towers.

First up, join me on 29th October in Worthing 10am-4pm for my Embellishment Workshop, where I will teach you the techniques to make one of three exclusive Halloweeny designs pictured above.

You will learn:

Felt padding
Applique
Embroidering over relief
French knots
Sequin techniques
Beading techniques
Wire wrapping
Plus lots of one-to-one coaching in applying your own creativity to textile design.

Suitable for all abilities, places are extremely limited and cost £75 which includes fabric, hoop, instructions, needles and use of my entire embellishment cache! Plus I can promise it will be a fun and informal day and there will be pumpkin themed snacks.

Contact me here to confirm your place!

Exhibitions this Autumn

Catch pieces from my Ugly Gods series at Stitch-Up at Brush in Brighton from 19th September until 3rd October.

I am also delighted to announce that you will be able to see the entire collection of Ritual Burials and Extinct Icons at ONCA Gallery in Brighton from 22nd November to 3rd December in the largest exhibition of my work to date. The event runs as part of the annual Remembrance day for Lost Species programme and promises to be a really dynamic and exciting curation of my work. The private view will be on the evening of 23rd November and I would invite you all to come along, I’d love to meet you.

As part of the programme of events for this exhibition and Lost Species Day I will also be running a Hand Embroidery and Embellishment Masterclass on Saturday 25th November at ONCA from 10am-4pm (times TBC). The theme of the workshop is Pollinators and I will be teaching techniques used to make one of 2 designs – a beetle (see above) or a moth/butterfly.

The day will be an exclusive chance to have a private tour of the exhibition with me, and a close look and explanation of the techniques used in my work on display. We will then get down to business customising and creating your chosen design, and will cover:

Felt padding
Applique
Embroidering over relief
French knots
Turkey Rug work
Surface embroidery techniques
Couching
Sequin techniques
Beading techniques
Wire wrapping
Plus lots of one-to-one coaching in applying your own creativity to textile design.

This will be a special day for textile art enthusiasts and due to the very limited nature of the places available, all abilities are welcome as I will be able to give lots of one-to-one attention. Places are £75 and will include fabric, hoop, instructions, needles and use of my entire embellishment cache. There will also be a special goodybag for each attendee!

Contact me here to confirm your place!

Last but not least!

After a hiatus of many years, commission slots are now available for purchase in my Etsy shop. Head on over there for all the details!

Ritual Burials: Wildcat

Posted by Mother Eagle on December 18, 2016 in Art, Embroidery, My Work, Skeleton, Work in Progress

Ritual Burials: Wildcat

It’s funny writing these blog posts after I’ve finished the series as I’m thinking back to how I felt starting each one and there was a certain amount of trepidation for each I think.

I had big plans for this one. I knew what plants I wanted to do and how to do them but could see it being a big-ish project.

First do the bones.

Longwinded but necessary foundations. Foundations is all.

I filled these with just pretty free flowing stitch.

Hairy stems.

Now on to something I’ve wanted to try for ages.

It’s not an octopus.

People went NUTS for this on Instagram. Most liked pic ever.

I lie, this was the most liked. I figured out how to do this just by looking at pictures of similar designs, and pictures of real thistles. Make a tassle, couch over the base of it, then embroider decorations over (I used a sort of crewel stitch here), then trim the ends and separate the strands.

Then I added the leaves and a few flourishes and there we have it. Scottish thistle.

I made a deal with myself that if I fill leaves with embroidery I can ‘cheat’ using velvet as the base of my detached slips on the next lot. I love this velvet so much.

Next, more fun.

These were quite tricky and I definitely didn’t make them perfectly. There are holes. But I still wished I had some real blackberries so I could play spot the glass ones and show off.

Back to this, add some thorns. You can see where this is going.

Lush.

\ \ B O U N D A R I E S / /

All Cats are sacred to the goddess in druid tradition, but the most powerful connection is in the Scottish Wildcat, now only found in the highland wilderness.
Cat teaches us respect and caution. She will accept our affection only on her terms. Cat is proud, independent and capable of observing both this world and the next. As an animal clearly in contact with the spirit world, and an ideal ally for witches, fear of their powers have made them victims of persecution throughout history.
In this Ritual Burial we see Cat surrounded by brambles, and the prickly Scottish thistle representing strong boundaries. Blackberries gathered under the right moon were believed to give protection against evil runes. Like the Cat, these plants, both ancient, require respect and caution for safe handling. Finally, the rune Thurisaz is shown, itself depicting a thorny vine that provides defence against invaders, and symbolises protection and defence.

8 of 10

Ritual Burials: Otter

Posted by Mother Eagle on December 14, 2016 in Art, Embroidery, My Work, Skeleton, Stumpwork, Work in Progress

Ritual Burials: Otter

I wasn’t feeling all that enthusiastic about the next 5 Ritual Burial pieces at this point. I was half way through and I basically couldn’t choose so I threw it out to my Instagram followers to do it for me. Otter was voted for. Social media can be a wonderful thing.

At the design phase I had struggled a bit with the composition. Undoubtedly Otter is one of the significant animals of the Druids but I couldn’t immediately find plants or symbols that went with him. In the end it was the strong connection to water, and all that element’s strong symbolism that led me to ferns as the flanking magical plants.

I was really excited to embroider a fern. They are probably my second favourite flora after mushrooms. I began with marking out the shape in tacking and couching a gradually thinning cord to make the spine of a classic Fiddlehead fern.

I knew I wanted to experiment with decorative stitches for the leaves so had a little practice first.

I think this stitch is aptly named ‘fern stitch’. I am a bit obsessed with the fractal nature of ferns. It’s a leaf on a leaf on a leaf.

I used a lovely variegated thread for this.

It couldn’t be a fern without a little furl so I followed the same method to make a curly wurly next to it.

I didn’t actually take a photo of the little detached picots I used to make the leaves for this bit, but there’s a video on my Instagram.

OK, so next things got weird. I did hesitate slightly with this fern, the quite rare Moonwort fern. It is so odd, so unlike ferns that I both loved it and worried it would just look weird in the composition. Great! I decided, and made these leaves out of velvet.

I’ll show you a photo of the real thing in a minute, if you’ve never seen one before. They look just like this but you be the judge. Like before I couched down some cord. I also got super excited to use beads for its little, well I suppose you’d call them pods. I pinned them in place first to make sure I was happy, then I stitched them all down.

Here you are:

So weird huh? Botrychium lunaria is one of the strangest, rarest and most ancient ferns. I want to fill my garden with them.

Moonwort was believed to have a strong effect on metal: it was once believed that it could unlock a door if inserted in a keyhole, and draw nails from the shoes of any horse that trod in it.

Look there’s the little leaves made from detached woven picots on the first fern.

Made a little leaf to add to the Moonwort.

So that’s the ferns done. Next Otter needs his magical jewel of power, so I stuck it on with fabric glue. But I mucked it up so had to add some french knots to hide the glue splodge.

Worked out though didn’t it? Looks nice.

Here it is, and I added the elemental symbol for water and also the rune Wunjo.

//O T T E R \\

The Otter stands for joy, playfulness, and helpfulness. The cubs stay longer with their parents than most other animals and when an otter dies, it’s mate will mourn for a long time. Because of this Otter also represents family, and bonds. Incredibly magical, the Otter is at home with elements of both water and earth, represented here by ferns. Dryopteris Felix mas, the male fern, and Botrychium lunaria, the Moonwort fern, representing the female, lunar element. Ferns are prehistoric, ancient plants and synonymous with the earth and water, healing and magic. Like the Toad, Fox, and Snake, the Otter is said to carry a secret power object – a magical jewel within its head. Otter is also shown with the elemental symbol for water and the rune Wunjo, representing joy, pleasure, and kinship with those the same.

6 of 10

Ritual Burial: Wolf

Posted by Mother Eagle on September 25, 2016 in Art, Embroidery, My Work, Skeleton, Work in Progress

Ritual Burial: Wolf

It starts as they all do.

I was quite intimidated by this one. I’ve been knocking these out about one per month but the Wolf took me nearly double that and I think it’s cos I couldn’t figure out a clever way to do the Wolfsbane flowers. Their shape is weird and I couldn’t think of a way to do it in stumpwork.

So they pretty much ended up in plain flat work. Which felt weird for me but was the best way of expressing them I guess.

The stem was variegated which is why it looks a little stripy. Then on to the flowers.

So I lied, they were a little bit 3D. Just padded with felt on the hoods.

I’d forgotten how nice just plain old embroidery can be. I’m pretty pleased with how these turned out. Next I got my metal threads out again.

Not the best example of the technique in the world to be honest, I struggled to get the tiny bits to lay flat.

On the other hand, these moon phases were really fun to do.

Did I say fun? I meant really fucking annoying. It’s all nice and shiny on the front but the back looks like the Cthulu came to tea.

So plunging and couching all that down was a day’s work.

So yea. This was my flattest piece for a while. I really like it though.

\\ W O L F //

The wolf represents intuition and learning, and can be the most faithful of animal guides. Mysterious and magical, wolf legends are ancient, especially those connecting wolves with the moon and shapeshifting. Shown here, the wolf-ghost is flanked by wolfsbane – so named as the spittle that fell from the three headed hell-hound Cerberus, guarding the gates of Hades, became the first one. It is also used by werewolves to cure themselves and also to become invisible. The mythology of the man-wolf is also represented by the moon phases as transformation, and by the magic of the silver dagger. Finally the rune Othala represents wisdom and integration, and in Norse mythology Odin’s final destruction at the hands of the Fenris Wolf.
The last wolf in Britain was thought to have been killed near the source of the river Findhorn in Scotland in 1743.

5 of 10.

Ritual Burials: Frog

Posted by Mother Eagle on August 22, 2016 in Art, Embroidery, Folk, My Work, Stumpwork

Ritual Burials: Frog

This is the weirdo. The strangeling.

The usual beginnings.

Puffball mushrooms. I’m sorry I don’t have any in-progress shots. So you’ll have to take my word for it that these are made of old tights. No really.

Sketched out these Mandrake dudes freehand, but did it so well directly on to the fabric that it was a bit tricky trying to cut out this eco-felt to match. Should’ve sketched it to the felt obviously.

Anyway, stitched them down and over-sewed it with these sort of shading running stitch. Wasn’t all that happy with this bit as I struggled to make it not look stripey.

When I was happy with that I added these little rooty bits with couched down string and stuff.

Sorry that one’s a bit overexposed.

Ok so next I had a genius moment when I realised my beloved 21st Century Yarns (my absolute fave thread designer) did space dyed cotton velvet in the same gorgeous shades as all their threads. Sigh velvet. So rather than fill in all these shapes with embroidery as normal I just selected the best shade of oily blue green and using the same shade of thread (genius) made my slips.

Raided my semi precious stones from my jewellery making days (oh how glad I am I hung on to these) and sorted through these lovely Ocean jaspers to find the perfect ‘Stone of Power’.

Druids believe that the frog or toad carrying a secret within is the possessor of a power object – a stone of magical properties said to be found in the heads of very old specimens. By carrying such a stone and using it magically, the druid would be able to contact the animal spirit.

//Frog / Ghost / Medicine//
Frog’s were considered by druids as representatives of water spirits and as creatures in contact with the underworld and the dark God. Frog brings medicine and also represents hidden power and beauty.
Frog is shown with puffball mushrooms representing inner connection and mystery, and the mandrake, the greatest magical reputation of all plants, with its ability to drive away illness, demons and misfortune. Also the rune Hagalaz which heals physical, mental and spiritual wounds and increases mystical experiences and knowledge.

4th in a series of 10.