Shirley Anne Sherris: The penultimate Dubai project posting

I hope everyone had a good Christmas break and will have a good new year in spite of everything.

It has been a long time since my last post and I have noticed that most of us are blogging less frequently these days.

I have had a big backlog of textile pieces to photograph and only managed to do them today. There were so many that I have decided to leave some for next time when I will have a few more finished pieces to add to them by then. Hopefully the next four pieces I am on with at the moment, will be the last - taking the project to about 70+ pieces altogether. However, every time I think this, I find a few more ideas come into my mind and that usually snowballs into even more so we will see.....

At the end of my last post I showed an image which was created in the computer from the facade of the hotel we stayed in.

I did manage to interpret this but it was rather fiddly. It was a compilation of several different techniques. The most difficult part was joining the pieces together.

Whenever I create a project from a visit, I always try to use the name of the place in some way. I have already posted a mobile which used the name of Dubai but separating the letters. The next two pieces use the name in full. I chose a font and distorted each of the letters in Photoshop then put them back together again in two different designs. The two designs were digitised in my machine software, sent to my embroidery machine to be stitched out using a variegated thread.

I used some dyed silk fibres and made them into a lacy fabric using an acrylic medium. This was placed onto a circle of the recycled sandy coloured fabric that I have been using throughout this project. The text design was stitched out over the top of the fibres then outlined with couched gold Japanese thread. I stencilled part of the Arabic motif around the edges and embellished them with beads. The remaining area of the fibres was stitched with vermicelli stitch to prevent the fibres being caught or fluffed with wear. The handle/strap was created from a woven pyjama cord. I dyed it, then machined a motif pattern along either side to stabilise it - ( must buy another one to replace it!). The strap was held in place with loops around the gusset. One of the bag tags used the text design - painted and outlined.

Next, I created a book, but this time the text was kept in a line in a different stylised design. I still had a very small amount of the dyed fibres, so I spread them thinly over the surface of the same fabric as the bag and adhered them in place using a fine bondaweb. The text was stitched out by my machine using the same variegated thread. As the fibres were still loose, I used a vermicelli stitch over the surface to prevent fluffing with wear. I applied some copper transfer foil around the edges of the fibres. Lastly, I applied clusters of copper beads over the surface, thinning out to single beads towards the edges of the book. The finished design was stretched and adhered to a card foundation and decorated pages were added inside. I used large beads - two of which were painted to match - for the book tags.

In the heritage village were a set of painted false windows which I have used many times in this project, mainly for blackwork. For the next piece, I decided to machine large versions of two of these designs. They became the sides of a pull tie bag. Some hand stitching was used to outline the designs and sequins and beads were used to embellish the designs. It was lined with a red silky fabric - a recycled dress.

The heritage village provided much of my design source and the large jug which stood at the entrance of a courtyard provided the next idea. I cut jugs from a number of different fabrics and materials - sixteen in all. Some were machine stitched, some were enhanced with transfer foils and some hand embroidered. They were all then appliqued to the surface of both sides of a tote or as a friend called it - a satchel - made from - you guessed it - the recycled sandy fabric. Every jug is different so there are eight different jugs on the other side.

I created quite a number of kaleidoscope patterns from the facade of the hotel and the next book uses yet another of these. I used up the last of some natural coloured Aide fabric for this piece. I chose copper metallic threads and cords with some bronze padded leather in the centre of the design.

Many of the walls were in fact open pattered frets and have used them for a number of pieces. I made a stamp from Funky foam for one of these designs. Using this stamp, I created a number of paper casts which produced the inverse of the design. I used four of these casts for the four sides of an open vessel. They were painted then highlighted with gold gilding wax. They were applied to the fabric using my favourite sorbello stitch in three different wights of thread. I free machined the centre part of the design onto the felt linings. They were then stitched together and enhanced with beads in amongst the sorbello stitches and along the edges.

I made six of these casts. One was not detailed enough to use leaving one spare - or not! I made a bag tag with it!!

I also had a left over model magic jug impression so I made that into a bag tag too.

And while I was into these bag tags, I used up another paper cast of one of the ballistrade designs. It was well varnished as it was a paper cast.

The next piece was yet another rescued piece. I was trying out some transfer foiling. The first part went well - covering the surface with some red foil. The next part was the disaster. I tried to create an effect using the heat gun but it ruined areas of the red foil. So, once again, me being me, I began to see what I could do to rescue it. I painted and foiled and stitched and painted and foiled and all of a sudden I had a fabulous piece of distressed antique surface. Better than my original idea. I turned it into a booklet.