The Great Digital Stitch Off

I'm on the train with a choice of work to do (no internet connection)...

a. Evaluate my progress with, and results of, digital embroidery 

b. Practice my presentation for tomorrow (in my head)

c. Start my reflective essay (2,500 words)

d. Watch a download of 'The Great Comic Relief Bake Off', Series 2, Ep.1 (not strictly work)

I might as well start at the top of the list as I would like to put off b and c for a good while.

I now have some experience (though not mastery) of;

• The industrial Brother 12 head embroidery machine at MMU: frame size = 30 x 40 cms (?)
• The Ethos embroidery program and the 5D Pfaff programs 
• The domestic Brother 1 head embroidery machine in the fashion dept at CCAD: frame size = 10 x 15 cms plus PE Design Plus program

Most of my samples have been produced on No.3 to date as this is more accessible (during lunchtimes and straight after work on a Tuesday), and the program much simpler but it is limited in size and doesn't really do what you want it to do (yet). There are somewhat haphazard options and a few ways of tweaking things but overall, very little flexibility. I find it surprising that in this digital age all this software is a total nightmare. None of these programs are very intuitive even though I have used Ethos for laser cutting for a few years now, so it is somewhat disappointing to find it's not the same. I do feel it should be easier and wish Adobe would design one. OR that someone would design a computerised machine that would just stitch directly from Photoshop or Illustrator. Am not sure how many different programs I can fit inside my brain. 

However, I still  want to  explore it as a technique, I have some ideas in my head and if they work out I will be happier and much more inclined to persevere and see what can be done. If they don't I shall be rather disappointed. Something Jane McKeating said in my tutorial still resonates with me -  that my artwork is very flat-looking. And it is. So I would like to translate and emphasise that flatness through digital embroidery (free machine embroidery would not be flat enough). It's  the opposite of what I love about hand embroidery...so I'm quite excited to mix it up.

So, the samples; 

On No.3: 

See last post...(Textural) cross stitch works so perfectly it's untrue, I especially like the double stitched areas although the thread does then snap rather a lot. Eventually, I would like to see how high I can build it up but better not do that on someone else's machine. 

Intention: To play with gradient colour and avoid it looking too chocolate boxy. Explore/use the reverse of the work, with the anchor threads.

• Import an image and this program generates the stitches for you, like it or lump it, (although there are 9 versions to choose from with very slight differences- a bit like the filters on a phone camera). What I do like is that you can select your colours and change them easily. All the other samples I have done are ok but remind me greatly of embroidered patches for jeans (still available in Boyes Stores) or logos on school uniforms, that's a size issue.

• It has given me a feel for the technique and generated ideas for at least 3 further samples I want to do on this machine before I commit fully to the big guns.

No's.1 + 2 worry me. I have had my inductions, producing a sample, but there is no way I can remember how to use these programs or the machine. I have popped onto the computers and played with some files on a few occasions in-between lectures but have forgotten the most basic instructions AND that is with referring to the manual. However, I have still booked a slot on it for 2 weeks time.  And I will annoy the technicians. A lot. I know this. I apologise in advance.

Today - purely in pictures...(almost)

But first a note: We were asked today if we thought the imminent lecture would be relevant to our own work. It was 'Memory and the Visual in Post Conflict Northern Ireland', I have to say that I have taken something valuable from every single session or lecture, whether or not I deemed it to be it relevant to me, even if it was just a list of possible words I may use in my written stuff.

And here's such a list:

• transformative reconfiguration
• valueist
• tangibility
• psycho memory
• skeuomorph
• baudelarairian 
• trans - temporal 
• indexical
• As a little task for myself I might try and insert all the above into my next presentation to my students :-)

Anyway, here's today...

      My design on the screen

THE whole machine (except for the other computer with the design software). Design on the right is Paula's.

Baby steps & giant strides

I didn't get chance to post on the train home last week due to a carriage full of old, drunken sweary louts wearing Christmas jumpers. I didn't manage to do ANYTHING except not look at them. Prior to that however I had quite an interesting day all about...'The Embroidery Experience'...I had training on the 12 head Brother embroidery machine software all morning which involved trying to master using the wheel in the centre of the mouse, clicking it but keeping it still ( I couldn't manage that at all). Then I 'experienced' the Cornely machines, all 7 of them, set up for different thicknesses of thread or cord. I was horrendously bad! It was so difficult it was untrue, I'm going to need either A LOT of practice or to not use them. It was harder than drumming lessons where you are using every limb to beat out a different rhythm. Disappointing results. What worries me is the time it will take to be able to use even one of these machines well, and I'm only there one day a week with other lectures to attend.

This week I'm going early, to attend a symposium- 'Material Matters', my main concern being that I may not have time to drop off my luggage first, sigh. 
There are some high profile speakers so watch this space.
And tomorrow... I get to stitch out my embroidery design. Whoop.

The 7 Cornelys

A very weird machine

P.S. 10.05pm
So... the symposium:

Was very nice thank you. Even though the idea and practice of 'academia', with 'academics' sat around discussing somewhat ordinary subjects 'academically', is rather alien to me, I did enjoy the speakers especially James, sculptor of sawdust extraordinaire. He talked incessantly for twice his allocated time but in such a dulcet tone that I went into a trance. The downside being that thing where you fall asleep for a nano second, jerking yourself awake and hoping no one noticed (x 3).

Interesting quotes of the day: "there is a presence around an (textile) archive, emotions are written on clothes - sweat produced through different emotions smells differently" and "Objects (in archives) make 'unknowable' history imaginable. Without objects, that history is unimaginable." (Jane Webb, in better words than those I remember)

Aside: linking to something said in Contested Territories, that the importance of archives is that they are what history is written from. Both relevant due to the recent closure of a number of important archives. I get that.