Sea and sand

This course has me looking at everything differently. Well, perhaps not so much differently as taking note of what I'm seeing more.  And recording it in some way or other when it is interesting.

We were lucky enough to have some sun when we arrived in the Gower. As soon as we put up the tent we ran down to the beach with our bodyboards. The afternoon sun on the shallow water has so much texture I wanted to record it for my skin theme book.

The sea at Rhosilli beach

I noticed for the first time what a sharp angle the water makes with the sand when you look up the beach - about 30 degrees. And that this shows the perspective very clearly.

Working on lines of running stitch, I found out how much the colour of yellow wool pales when you sew it further apart. I think this is the right way to say it, rather than saying it intensifies when it is together, because it looks more intense in the ball.

I particularly liked altering the lengths of stitches to see how that affected the end product. I did one section which ended up with me picking up only one thread of the calico underneath between stitches. It was more like weaving than sewing in a way. And looked interesting and attractive.

Running stitch exercise
The flash shows up the difference in shininess of the threads.
The crumples are because it was done during a camping trip!

I loved the way this section turned out. I wanted to make it circular (dictated by the embroidery hoop) and look nice all together, even though I know that isn't the point of the exercise at all. The proximity of the different sections caught my imagination and I ended up doing some which should really be part of the next exercise.

Once I realised that I reread the exercise instructions, and thought - how can I do ALL the permutations of narrowing patterns, four stitches, thick and thin, textured and smooth, matt and shiny? Can that really be what they mean?

I particularly liked the way the thicker harder yarns made such a different kind of texture. The middle section was done with upholstery twine. And I noticed again how the type of yarn and the closeness of the lines of stitches dictates the length of the stitches I want to make.  I think I should try doing the opposite - long stitches in very fine thread close together, and very short ones in thick thread - just to see what happens.