Creating my Final Piece


To begin, I cut a sheet of old brushed cotton to the size of a single duvet cover, using one of my own as a stencil. I really like the feel of this fabric because it is much more textured than a usual cotton sheet and has a thickness that gives it strength and warmth - it is also soft to the touch and a natural shade of white that doesn’t look too bright.

I stitched on some lace detail inspired by the textile elements in ‘Bagpuss’ as I wrote about before, and started trying different arrangements of my motifs on the sheet. There weren’t enough of them to cover it without there being massive gaps so I pinned them on towards the top and this looks fine because they are around eye-level when the piece is hanging up, making the easy to view.


Once I settled on an arrangement of the creatures, I did some research about plants that are relevant to the theme of witchcraft and magic using this book that I got to help with my project, and my idea was to embroider these among the animals.




Using these botanical illustrations as my references, I began to plan out which plants I would use and how I could simplify them, by drawing sketches with fairly minimal detail. This was so that I didn’t give myself an over-complicated challenge that I wouldn’t have time to do, since embroidery is a slow process. I decided o not to use the mandrake plant since I already had the one I made as a patch.



I hand stitched the outlines and some of the details before using the sewing machine to fill in the colours. I then added beads as little accents and highlights which also provide texture. I think the beads work really well to represent pollen and seeds, while their shine stands out against the fabric and catches the light. I also think they give a three-dimensionality that the piece needed. When choosing the colours of thread I tried to aim for natural tones which complement the subject matter and look high quality. They also helped me achieve the vintage/old fashioned aura that I wanted to create.



This is the process I used to apply my creatures as I didn’t want to stitch over them, and it worked really well as they feel secure and flat.



The final stage was to attach my sheet onto a pre-existing duvet cover that I didn’t want anymore and I did this on the sewing machine, making sure not to sew the end together so I can put the duvet inside. I ironed it all out and there is some puckering from my embroidery and some fold lines which wouldn’t come out since it had been folded up for years, potentially decades, at my Grandma’s house. I don’t mind that though, I think if there were no imperfections it wouldn’t look very handmade or authentic.




With my remaining time, I made a pillowcase using some spare fabric and my calico samples which I felt deserved to be in my final piece. I pinned them on in a grid arrangement, making sure to position the crow and the cat next to each other since I really like that combination, and I tried to ensure there was a sense of balance. For instance: the most humanoid motifs (the pisky and the sitting mandrake) are placed in opposite corners; the two pieces that use green (toad and mandrake) are in the other two opposite corners; and the two black pieces (crow and rat) are diagonally across from each other. Another way I thought about presenting these was to make them into a little book like Louise Bourgeois's, but I decided it would be better to make the pillow so that there is a full bed set.



With my remaining time, I made a pillowcase using some spare fabric and my calico samples which I felt deserved to be in my final piece. I pinned them on in a grid arrangement, making sure to position the crow and the cat next to each other since I really like that combination, and I tried to ensure there was a sense of balance. For instance: the most humanoid motifs (the pisky and the sitting mandrake) are placed in opposite corners; the two pieces that use green (toad and mandrake) are in the other two opposite corners; and the two black pieces (crow and rat) are diagonally across from each other.

I wanted the stitching to be visible when I applied the squares so I took care in choosing the colour - I selected a few different ones and compared them against the motifs. My favourite was the dusty-pink shade and I used the zigzag setting on the sewing machine because it reminds me of blankets and old homemade furnishings, plus I thought it would work nicely with the frayed edges of the fabric and be more visually interesting than a straight stitch.


Photographs of my finished piece can be found here:


https://charlottewalkerartfoundation.blogspot.com/2021/06/final-piece-photographs.html

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