For my third and final assessment piece for my Level 3 course, I had to practice working to commission.
For the final assessment piece, I had to choose a piece to work to commission. There were a few options to choose from, but I really liked the idea of a children's book cover. With children myself, I have loved reading them bedtime stories, and the illustrations are always so colourful and joyful. I thought a stumpwork book cover could really bring a children's story to life.
I then started looking at pictures of children's book covers and started to come up with an idea for a story. Inspired by so many different stories, I thought of a story based in the woods aimed at children from 7 - 12, as it would be a nice transition to novels from picture books. I decided it could be the first book in a series called 'The Adventures of Mervin Mouse', with the title of the book being 'Mervin Mouse Saves the Wood'. The idea being that Mervin, with the help of his animal friends and two children manage to save the Meadow Wood from the threat of housing developers.
The Design
Once I had the idea in place, I began sketching. I came up with a few different designs, then picked the best elements to create this design. I chose to do a padded frame again, as I had done for my stumpwork sheep piece. As well as being a book cover the piece was also to be framed to go on display at a book signing. I thought a padded frame would work well, and add to the woodland theme.
As well as planning an eye-catching design, as this was to be a piece to practice working to commission, I was also given a budget. This was something very new to me for embroidery! The budget was £750. Although this sounds a lot, once you have to take into account the number of hours it will take, and a reasonable hourly rate, you realise, it's not that much! This meant that the design had to be interesting, but go overboard on very fine detail. A balance had to be struck.
Working the Design
I started by making the border. The fabric was hand dyed. I stitched the wavy leaf design around the edge using raised leaf stitch. Then assembled the frame. Although this is quite fiddly, I had learnt a lot about how to do it from the stumpwork sheep piece I worked before.
I then got to work on the background. Again the fabrics were all hand dyed. For the trees, I dyed my son's old PE T-shirt! It was perfect for the job. As it was so soft, it was easy to shape and create folds, just how I wanted them. It's always good to try and reuse fabric too, that would otherwise go to waste.
I slowly added more detail to the background. The leaves were fun to do, but very time consuming. From scraps of dyed green fabric, I cut out individual leaves and also used stitching over the top. It gave an effect I was pleased with, as the different colours of fabric created a more natural look.
I then began to work on some of the different elements that were to be added on top. I stitched them all onto a piece of green organza. Once they were all finished, I cut them away incredibly carefully, before adding them to the background. I chose green organza, as I thought if there were any pieces that were still showing after being cut away, then hopefully, it wouldn't notice too much.
Once everything was stitched in place, I assembled everything, and put it in the frame I had painted. Stitching and assembly, took about 43 hours, plus a few extra hours for designing. Did I manage to keep it within budget - yes I did!
This was my final assessment piece for the level 3 course. So although I was happy to finish it, I also felt a little sad that the course was coming to an end. So what did I do next? Well, of course, I simply had to enrol on the level 4 course!
To read about my first module of Level 4 click here: Historical Stumpwork (claireharveyembroidery.com)
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