KIrstie Queen of Crafts,
At the beginning of the summer I was extremely honored to have a piece commissioned by Janome Uk to showcase at The Handmade Festival in Hampton Court in September.
The handmade festival is three day event which brings together inspirational crafts people, handmade goods and artisan workshops throughout the UK.
I got my thinking hat on and came up with the idea of making a large Portrait of Kirstie Allsopp, Co host of the Handmade Festival and Queen of crafts on Channel four out of fabric and thread.
I began the project my making a pencil sketch of Kirstie. I never trace or use templates for my work. Its all done by eye, so starting the portrait was a very daunting experience especially knowing that Kirstie Herself would probably see it at the festival.
I use a Janome Memory Craft 6700P, an absolute power-horse of a machine, it has a fab clear foot which is ideal for free motion embroidery pieces. Working on a stitched portrait such as this call for layers and layers of thread, you need to be able to see how one color thread makes another pop and so the clear foot is ideal.
Once I had the skin-tone establishes I appliqued a dark fabric for the hair and then worked back into that using different tones to capture highlights and low lights.
Kirstie always has amazing dresses so picking a fabric for her dress was no easy choice.. I went for something bright and eye catching in the end as i wanted it to capture peoples attention from afar when it was hung at the festival.
The next phase of the Project was to stitch all of the sewing accessories. As Kirsty is the Queen of crafts I wanted her to be surrounded by the tools of the trade, and so began the intricate stitching of everything from ornate embroidery scissors to tiny safety pins to rotary cutters and long measuring tapes.
For the backing fabric, I let my creativity go wild and filled the fabric with lots of multicolored acrylic ink splashes.
The finished piece was presented like a mini quilt. Backed and bound using the same fabric that I used in Kirsties dress to give it one final flourish.
The portrait to over four full weeks of intensive stitching to complete, But it was definitely one of my favorite pieces to make to date.
It was unveiled in the Janome tent at the Handmade festival on Friday the 13th of September, and is now hanging proudly in Janome Headquarters.