From Design to Stitch

The 2 ‘linked days’ course that I taught recently at Alston Hall went down very well.  I had planned for everyone to spend a short amount of time in the grounds with their digital cameras but the weather was freezing cold and quite windy. Not very conducive!  I gave them each a gallery of 20 images to work from instead.

We spent the 2 days working through a series of tasks using layers, filters and blend modes to create some really interesting effects. They learned how to edit and manipulate images, getting rid of unwanted areas, layering images and applying different effects to each. Selecting interesting areas, applying gradients and copying and pasting to create pattern or texture as well as creating their own brushes, patterns and motifs and adding text. We also selected areas in which we might like to change the colour and made changes to the opacity levels. 

We looked at a variety of ways to transfer images to fabrics and paper and how to develop an image into a stitched piece. Sadly there wasn’t enough time to start any stitching. Everyone did however go away with two printed pieces of fabric ready for stitching.

Below are some of the interesting pieces produced.

 
 
 

The lily bud started out yellow in the original image                                              Adding text

These images were created from a photograph of a stitched tulip that I had created. They then had to select the tulip and saved it as a new brush. Then they experimented in applying the brush and applying colour changes , layers and filters. I was really delighted with the results. They were too.