Gremlin Embroidery 01/

So whilst I was stuck on a beanbag for two weeks thinking my life was over, I was also determined to not let life get me down too much and just find others ways of being creative. I've been following this amazing artist, by the name of Chloe Giordano on tumblr for a while now, she does amazing embroidery works so full of detail and just down right beautiful. She is also super open with her method and approach and I was 100% inspired by her to take on my own embroidery challenge. 

Of course it was going to be Gremlin. I actually have a collection of terrible photos of Gremlin that I take on my iPhone, in all sorts of horrible lighting. I take them because he does such curious poses and I know they'll be super useful for art challenges in the future. I then had this thought, well last year I made a clay Gremlin and this year I can make an embroidered Gremlin and then each subsequent year a new art challenge involving Gremlin - that sounds like fun and perhaps a little crazy! I also wanted a project that could be a labour of love and be totally fine if it took a year to complete. 

I thought it would be fun to show progress pics along the way, just like Chloe does on her tumblr and thus I introduce you to phase one!

Above are the tools Chloe uses:

- polyester sewing thread (Gutermann brand)

- a thimble (shamefully still haven't quite figured it out yet)

- a vanishing pen (which is what I used to draw Gremlin's outline in the first photo)

- unbleached calico (I bought half a metre)

- sewing needles, (Chloe mainly uses size 8's which my store was out of but they did have size 12's which are even tinier)

- an embroidery hoop 

Since the vanishing pen does vanish! I also repeated Chloe's idea of doing an outline stitch (that gets removed at the end) so I could tell the rough outline/placement of Gremlin. You can see I also printed off my reference picture so I have something to go off as well :)

It's early days yet and funnily enough I barely started this project before my back magically got better and then I decided there was a bunch of others things I should be doing over embroidery :P I do love taking on a year long challenge and I love that it's something I'm not going to rush but try and take my time with it and make it beautiful.

Huge huge thanks to Chloe for being so helpful and inspiring and an all around amazing creative person, if you want to follower her, she has a website here and her tumblr is here.