Also scheduled for this autumn, but something that I can already blog about: The Fleur de Lis Gold Embroidery Kit. Here's the finished prototype, finally:
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| It does look much nicer in real life. |
I did the last stitches yesterday in the evening, when the light was already dimming down, but it was still rather light. That minimises the sparkle of the gold thread, which makes the work hard to see.
Speaking of hard - gold embroidery is really, really hard to photograph. Especially if you are in kind of a hurry, which I was this morning (and that usually leads to a bad photo day). The trick is to take the picture with underexposure, and with no direct light to avoid any sparkles. Then it can still be tricky to get the thing in proper focus, as the autofocus often has trouble with the sparkly bits; or to get the exposure right because of strong contrasts between the gold and the dark background.
So you're not getting the world's best piccies of the finished prototype yet, but I had the strong urge to share with you. Including these bad closeups:
This, by the way, is how it looks if you take a picture with flash:
Hint: Flash is not helpful...
I had such a bad photo day that I even botched the pictures of the back of the embroidery, which technically should be no problem to take a picture of. So you're getting only this bad detail shot this time (you know, because of the law).
I'm really happy to have this finished, though. The template stencil for the final version is done as well, and looks very much like the prototype here, with only a few tiny changes. The fabric for the final version is off to be dyed already, and as soon as it arrives back here, I'll cut it into pieces... and then I will gild the lily once again, a third and final time, taking photos of the individual steps for the instruction booklet.
(And those photos? I'll take them in a softbox, with the camera on a stand, and with plenty of time planned for that shoot...)
3 comments:
I want one of those kits when they come to your shop.
And I like the way the detail photo turned out, you can see every stitch, especially for the middle part. With that picture I can get an idea of how it could be done (I don't know if I'm thinking about the historically correct method though).
Glad you like it! I'm planning to include lots of detail photos in the instruction booklet, similar to the detail photos here (only fully in focus instead of half-unfocussed). And if your idea is "place the gold thread on top of the fabric and stitch it in place with the silk" - you are right! :)
Have you ever read The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon? It's a memoir of a Japanese court lady (I'm suffering from a cold, and can't recall when she lived). One of the charming things in the book are her list. One is of Squalid Things, including the inside of a cat's ear, and the back side of a piece of embroidery. I tend to disagree with her on both of these, but nevertheless, I think of her list every time I look at the back of embroidery.
Yours is certainly NOT squalid. More like splendid.
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