Swallowtails - perfect inspiration!

The inspiration for my swallowtail was a  request  from a very good customer and fashion blogger
Fashioneyesta, https://www.facebook.com/Fashioneyesta. After purchasing several of my other hatchlings Emily asked if I had considered a Swallowtail butterfly as it reminded her of a childhood story. After several sketches I felt I had perfected the shape and made my first sample. I decided to keep the colours to black and a very strong contrast in pure silk. the first hatchling was made in turquoise.

I used a layer of shot organza over the top of the silk, stitching with variegated threads and then a sprinkling of micro sequins. The antennae made from finely, knotted hemp string.

Several other colour ways followed, the most popular at the moment being the green.

After a making session one day I placed all the swallowtails on my mannequin and this sparked a new idea!

The swallowtail necklace was born. I decided to make a combination brooch/necklace, a small silver ring is sewn above the brooch bar, the ribbon and cords can then be threaded through. This was decided after a comment by a follower on Face Book. I'm very lucky to have such inspirational 'cyber

friends'.

The collection is available in my Etsy shop with a new product coming soon, the Swallowtail cuff.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Heatheremb?ref=si_shop

 

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Liberty Lepidoptera.

I first fell in love with Liberty prints during my degree course. This was when Liberty had a small store on King's Street in Manchester. I would spend hours pouring over the beautiful Tana Lawn prints, occasionally purchasing a remnant with my meagre grant.
I added to my 'stash' many years later when I moved to Devon. I was lucky to find a small factory that made blouses for the London store, every now and then they had a sale, I was in heaven.

The prints have a wonderful quality to them and the fine cotton is just wonderful to work with. When I was a student I wore handmade pyjama style trousers in Liberty print. So my collection grew and stayed in a box until very recently. At the beginning of the year I decided to combine my hatchlings with the pattern and colour of Liberty.

 

And so the Liberty Lepidoptera collection was born. First were the butterflies or Liberty Belles.

These are very delicate brooches, made in layers of silk and cotton. The butterflies are then embroidered and finally embellished with tiny seed pearls or micro sequins.

Next came the moth shape, Liberty Beaus, the design based on the Luna Moth. the first one of these is winging its way to Australia

They make a great, lightweight present, maybe for Mothering Sunday. I think they would look fantastic on a cardigan, floral dress or denim jacket. At the moment I am offering free postage and gift wrap on the hatchlings, they are £12.50. Please see my Face Book page for current colours or contact me on mail@heatheremb.co.uk   https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-Everitt-Embroidery/148831055172427

The free postage offer will be on until the end of March. I will then be listing the collection on Etsy.

The colours and prints have a lovely, cohesive vintage feel. It is fantastic to combine these great designs with my butterfly and moth shapes.

I hope you like the collection, I am very happy with my Liberty Lepidoptera and know many more hatchlings are to come.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-Everitt-Embroidery/148831055172427

Sketch Books

Ever since my foundation art course I have kept a sketchbook. One of my tutors stressed the importance of drawing every day, it's like training, developing a muscle. So I try to keep this up, every idea I have is jotted down and thought through on paper, there's also a great deal of observational drawing too.

I love using a variety of media in my work, watercolour, pencil crayon, ink you name it. I also like drawing on textured surfaces so handmade paper is a favourite. I create surfaces too collaging papers together.
While I was on my degree course I had a real block with drawing,  it was suggested to get over the 'frightening' white of a new piece of paper I draw on graph paper. I still like using different backgrounds now, at the moment it's old books.

 

I also recently had some of my sketchbook pages digitally printed onto large scale canvas, I'm so pleased with the results.

Drawing and painting is a vital tool within my work, it's way of visualising my thoughts and trying out shapes before they reach textiles and threads.

I also keep old sketchbooks and it's amazing to see ideas resurface, or work that I did several years ago become relevant to a current piece.
I'll be showing my current canvas stock at Exeter Craft Festival in July www.exetercraftfestival.co.uk

Butterfly Inspiration!

As you can see I love butterflies, moths & insects; in fact the natural world in general is my constant inspiration. It is just over 2 years ago that my work began to focus particularly on bugs.
I was taking part in a local art & craft fair called Art Bazaar, the organisers ran an award called The People's Choice. Here visitors to the event voted for their favourite stand. I was lucky enough to win and as part of the prize I had the opportunity for a solo exhibition at Barnstaple's Atelier Gallery.


The brief was that this had to showcase a completely new body of work. I had previously concentrated on landscapes and flowers so where to go next?

Well a visit to Exeter's Royal Albert Museum solved the problem. The collection had recently been revamped and the highlight for me was the butterfly room. Instead of the slightly, rigid Victorian style display of impaled specimens on long pins, these butterflies appeared to still be flying. The gorgeous creatures were captured under Perspex and surrounded you! There was my inspiration.

So I began to fill sketchbooks with images and photographs. One thing I did know was that all my pieces would involve my favourite fabric, silk.

New beginnings

Hello and welcome to my first post.

 This year has been all about firsts so far. I have this wonderful new website  with a fantastic logo, a new Etsy shop  and now a blog. All this social networking is quite stressful for a self confessed 'technophob'. Though I am getting better I think my biggest success has been building up my Facebook page.  The hours I spend on the iPad are working, honestly!

Anyway enough of the technical stuff. I hope, in this blog, to let you know about my latest work my inspirations and anything else that interests me. Anything I think you will find interesting too.

At the moment I combining two parts of my embroidery work, the serious side and the more playful.
I make banners with my serious stitching head on and when I feel the need to be more creative I love the natural world. I'm always sketching and jotting down ideas for new pieces. I'm obsessed by insects at present.

The above picture shows embroidery for a banner. I use similar techniques in all my work, that of applique and machine embroidery with added details of hand stitching. All also use silk throughout my pieces. I love its colour, weight and texture. There's also a subliminal link to insects, only recently thought about that one!

A wall butterfly.

So thanks for reading, I'm so happy I've written by first blog and I'll speak again soon.
Heather x

Hello! This is my first post.

This is my space to share my work in progress, inspiration, thoughts and musings. I hope you enjoy.