Reader's Embroidery: Icon
Anne G. sent along some photos of her latest piece, an embroidered icon. The the piece is small, it "packs a lot of punch." Though the piece has a somewhat modern flair to it, it reflects the icon tradition in religious art. I thought you would enjoy seeing it.
Anne embroidered the piece as a gift. The completed size is 4.5" x 5.25", so quite small, but the space is used really well.
The design is from a book called A Brush With God, and the original picture is called "Peter's Mother of God." The original is by Peter Pearson, who kindly gave Anne permission to use it. The representation is of "Our Lady of Tenderness."
The embroidery is worked entirely in flat silks, on silk upholstery fabric, mounted on high count muslin. The halo, or nimbus, is worked in pairs of #8 Japanese gold - it's really beautiful!
And this is the framed piece. I think the framing is ingenious - it really sets off the embroidered piece well.
Thanks so much for sending the photos, Anne! It's always a pleasure to see you're work!
Anne embroidered the piece as a gift. The completed size is 4.5" x 5.25", so quite small, but the space is used really well.
The design is from a book called A Brush With God, and the original picture is called "Peter's Mother of God." The original is by Peter Pearson, who kindly gave Anne permission to use it. The representation is of "Our Lady of Tenderness."
The embroidery is worked entirely in flat silks, on silk upholstery fabric, mounted on high count muslin. The halo, or nimbus, is worked in pairs of #8 Japanese gold - it's really beautiful!
And this is the framed piece. I think the framing is ingenious - it really sets off the embroidered piece well.
Thanks so much for sending the photos, Anne! It's always a pleasure to see you're work!
Labels: needlework pictures, pictures, readers embroidery, silk
Posted By: Mary Corbet on Monday, May 11, 2009
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7 Comments:
This is gorgeous! I love the tenderness icons...
I have been wanting to embroider Our Lady of Czestochowa, but have never been able to figure out how to go about attacking it. I wonder if there is a pattern somewhere?
Wow! This is really beautiful! I like the frame job, too. It looks very dignified.
Sara K.
The icon is nice. The embroidery looks perfect. How did she manage satin stitching over such wide spaces. Is it padded or is it couched? I'm talking about the red hood at the top.
CJ
So beautiful and perfect!
Thanks for your kind remarks. I asked Mary for permission to reply to the questions. Re Our Lady of Czestochowa, in the tradition of iconography, one should make copies to learn, but you should be faithful to the tradition of the original as you make your copy, using similar colors, etc. So, find a good copy of Czestochowa, photocopy it, make a line tracing, transfer to fabric and embroider her. I asked when I did mine about padding the hands, but icons are 2 dimensional, flat. The only padding is in the diagonal stitch on the trim of the halos and around the veil. The dimension of the veil comes from the shine and color of the silk.
The flat silk of the veil is a Japanese technique called weft foundation. I used 2 strands of flat silk and pulled it tight, laying with a tekobari. As soon as I could in the process I did the holding with twisted silk karayori, couched down to hold the flat silk. Otherwise it gets the frizzies, like my curly hair. The rule is to go only 1 cm without holding of some kind in flat silk. I cheated a little on the top, as it is almost 3 cm, but since I held down the rest, it seems to be behaving. Since it is framed and not on a garment it should not be a problem. If it were going to be longer, I would have probably done a different technique called short stitch holding to keep it in place and shiny. Thanks again, Anneg
Beautifully done.
Lovely!
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