Drawn Thread Forests with Catherine Jordan

For the past two days I've had the pleasure of learning from this warm and talented woman, Catherine Jordan.

I've been admiring Catherine's work for years as she tends to exhibit her work at the Woodlawn Needlework show each March.  

Her work is wonderfully three-dimensional and she uses a combination of drawn thread, fabric painting, needleweaving and embroidery to make contemporary forests, boxes, journals and more.

I just love how her trees not only recede back into the composition but come forward as well, reaching over the picture frame.

Our project yesterday was this 4"x6" contemporary drawn thread forest...

Though it appears as if this forest is deeper than one piece of fabric, it's not.  Isn't that cool?

The first part of class was learning to withdraw threads and re-weave them to create an opening in the linen...

That took me most of the first day...a bit time-consuming but well worth it.

Next, we each painted the fabric, giving added dimension to our forest setting.

I love a process class like this where individual choices makes each piece unique. 

Folks were choosing shades of autumn, spring and summer and pieces started coming to life...

We learned many tips for shading and creating skylines during different seasons and times of day.

Once the stage was set, the fun continued as we learned methods for weaving our trunks and embroidering the foliage...

Lots of decisions needed to be made about tree placement, foreground and background...

As well as clipping out threads to make space for the trees to breathe...

After two days of work, some of our forests were well underway...

And some of us only had the beginnings of an idea...

I decided on a dark and creepy forest and spent yesterday painting my linen and working on a creepy tree.  Just one.

I have visions of something like this..

Though I'd really like to keep working on it, I've got to push it aside to work on a few other things for Mrs. Rose and my Japanese embroidery.

Most of the time when I attend a workshop at my Guild, I feel badly because many of the courses are not available to you in your areas.

Here's the good news.  Catherine is teaching this class, Contemporary Forest Necklaces, at the Shining Needle Society online and registration is open now!

If you are not yet a member of the Shining Needle Society Yahoo group, you can go here to find all the details.  There are MANY opportunities for you to take classes there, just request to sign up and you will receive updates on class offerings.  Catherine's forest class begins November 1, 2014 but registration closes today so get a move on!

Catherine Jordan will also be teaching at EGA National Seminar in Phoenix in a few weeks.  If you can't find her there, spend some time perusing her website to see her work and her class schedule.  She sells kits for many of her designs (including instructions) as well as supplies.

Oh, and check out her maps (kits here, workshops here)!  They are amazing! And there's an online class for that too if you're interested in making one for your area (details here).  

I would love to do the Chesapeake Bay so a group of us from our EGA Chapter hopes to research one and stitch it together with Catherine's assistance.  She told us about a group in Cape Cod that is creating one for a class she'll be teaching there next Summer which gave us the idea.  Thank you Catherine!!

Here's hoping you get to learn from her one day.  She is wonderfully open with her expertise and her workshops are chock full of information that will open up whole new areas of possibilities in your needlework...

Literally.