Warwick Cosmo Sampler Progress!

I am so excited to make some time to work on this again!   I have been working on the grass and stems of the Warwick Sampler (named after Warwick, NY where I took the photo).  I am experimenting with using the smooth passing with DMC floss using the needle-weaving technique you see on stumpwork to make tiny 3-dimensional flowers and leaves.  I thought it would be exciting to take this technique and scale it up to the full size of the grass blades.  Each blade is created using a different combination of smooth passing and DMC.  There are a few that I wanted to use only the smooth passing for contrast.  I wanted to try seeing how tight I could weave the smooth passing, what would happen if the weaving was fairly loose, and all the in-betweens!  My main goal was to have the blades come off the surface as much as possible.  More to come this week!

Warwick Sampler Progress. . .

Here's some photos of the progress I've made on the Warwick Sampler.  This flower was executed by couching down thin strips of metallic leather.  I tried different couching patterns on different each petal.  On 1 petal I tried to couch down loops of the leather to see how that changed the texture.  The base of the flower was created with bullion knots of gilt smooth passing (size 4) and long pieces of tarnished silver smooth purl.

Warwick Sampler- Creative Goldwork (in progress)

This is a sampler that I started in Durham, England this summer during classes with Tracy Franklin at her studio at Fowler's Yard.  The previous 2 summers, I had taken classes on traditional goldwork technique and wanted to focus on more non-traditional or "creative" ways of utilizing the metal threads and wires.  

For this flower, I have cut thin strips of leather and couched them down using DMC floss.  The base of the flower was created with Smooth Passing bullion knots and tarnished Smooth Purl.

The following 2 buds are created using layered "Wheel" stitch executed in Smooth Passing and DMC floss.

With this flower, I wanted to practice color shading with a burden stitch and smooth passing.  Each petal is slightly different.  I tried shading with not only the colored DMC floss but also the gold and silver smooth passing.  What I find interesting after I added the Pearl Purl edging is that the colors are more of the focus in the petals outlined in gold and the outline is more of the focus on the petals outlined in silver.  This may be because the silver Super Pearl Purl seems slightly thicker than the gold Super Pearl Purl, or it may just simply be the color difference--still an extremely interesting result to me. 

 I added pieces of stretched Pearl Purl (gold and silver) to the Smooth Passing bullion knots.