Josh Melbourne Responses

I have created a couple embroidery samples inspired by Josh Melbourne's work. Melbourne uses a plain, neutral piece of fabric so I chose calico to embroider onto. My first sample I hand stitched, outlining my shape with a pencil then stitching over. I chose a mushroom and a cat as he uses these to shapes in his work. For the cat, I created the outline of the motif with back stitch, then created loads of smaller stitches to fill in the silhouette. I found it very time consuming hand stitching the colour of the cat so it is likely Melbourne would have used machine embroidery in his work. To develop this sample and my machine embroidery skills, I will create my next sample with a sewing machine.

For this sample I drew out the outline of a cats head, back stitched the outline and around the eyes and nose. Before using the sewing machine, I ensured there was no hazards around my work space such as water. I also took my scarf off to prevent that interfering with my work. I placed my sample into an embroidery hoop and machine embroidered vertically as it looks like Melbourne works that way. Even though this sample was machine embroidered, I was surprised at how time consuming it was. For the first half of the sample, I was taking my time working up and down the entire shape. For the last half I tried another method with was quicker. I found moving the hoop up and down in quick motions filled the shape much quicker and there was less gaps. However this used more thread, making this half of the sample much stiffer. Even though this was a quicker and easier method, taking my time gave a better finish to the sample. I satin stitched the nose with a pale pink colour to finish.

I find hand stitching you have more control on where you want the thread to go however machine embroidery is more beneficial as it isn't as time consuming. With a bit more practice on machine embroidery I may use this to produce my final samples. I shall experiment with different fabrics to see which would be more suitable. I shall also develop some more drawings embroidery samples with cats, as they are heavily involved within my theme.