This month we were pleased to welcome Mary Taylor who produces the most beautiful landscapes in machine embroidery. Mary had come to deliver a talk on the way she works and what inspires her. She starts with photographs of landscapes/seascapes which inspire her and is very careful with her composition. Samples of her work are below.
Mary explained how she is inspired by landscapes, the changing moods of landscapes and the relationship of plants and structures to those environments.
She has a particular love of the sea which features frequently in her work.
Mary explained how she took photographs and then cropped the picture for the piece she wanted to reproduce in embroidery.
She then builds up layers of calico, pelmet vilene, coloured velvet and coloured sheers in the appropriate colours as you can see below.
She then sets her machine to machine embroidery and begins stitching, first to secure the sheers and then to build up texture and colour.
After machining the background she sometimes burns the sheers away to reveal the colours underneath. When the background is finished she machine stitches the foreground e.g. a tree or grasses and then sometimes finishes with handstitched flowers.
The results are very beautiful and you feel that the landscape is before your eyes.
By the end of the talk we were all itching to get our machines out and start stitching!
Thank you Mary for an inspirational talk.
