Hema -The premise of this brief was to create hand embroideries that would be unexpected and unconventional whilst keeping the couture level of beauty and quality. The sample pieces for this project were blood cells to be used as body adornments. Traditional techniques such as Gold work have been used with more unconventional materials such as ribbons, knitted wire, and felting.  The use of a process such as felting enables the ability to create an organic shape of your own choosing. The results that are achieved from felting are very reliant on the haptic response to the material being created. Using knitted wire involves a very tactile process of forming and shaping the material into the required shapes.  The use of wide satin ribbon in the same process that metal plate would be used gives a softer but equally effective finish.  The resulting pieces were 3 dimensional and alongside the use of materials that clashed, such as the wire against the wool felt, and the use of a single colour palette are processes and choices that I enjoy using in my embroidery.

TheEntombment,Peter Reubens, 1612.

ArtemisiaGentileschi,Judith Beheading Holofernes, c. 1620.