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Sunday 14 June 2009

Mary Wigham by Katia in France

Another beautiful interpretation in the making, this time by Katia in France. I find that palette of browns and blues so assured and so calming. Look at the small geometric motif placed between the brown and partly finished blue medallions on the top row. Katia has taken a monochrome motif and rendered it in polychrome shades. It is a personal cadenza. Maybe, even if we are following the pattern quite strictly, we might take a little leap and put in one element that is truly our own. I am always asked by dealers and historians why anyone would ever want to stitch a replica. So, I sit them down to dinner and ask how they learnt to cook. Did they have the early panache to toss things in a pan, wave a magic wand and deliver perfection on a plate? Well, no, actually. Guess what? They learnt from a cook book, just like me, assiduously replicating each instruction. And over the years I learnt to season, to balance ingredients, and developed a taste and eye so that now in later life I can go to an almost empty fridge and conjure up something that can be startlingly good. Stitching replicas and taking time to understand the colours, the balance, the harmony of placement is a wonderful way to develop sensitivity and art in stitching. From stitching strict replicas we move on, we change the palette of colours for a mix that is more in tune with our taste; we change the placements slightly; we correct asymmetries or create new ones (sometimes by accident) of our own. We are on the way to becoming a designer in our own right. But more, much more than that, by stitching a replica we have followed the map of a living human hand and heart and, for a while, traced something of their life with our thread. That is why I want to stitch replicas. How about you?

20 comments:

  1. Thats not my reason of stitching a replica. I stitch it because of its beauty. Simple as that.

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  2. I am fascinated by the Faces of Ackworth School. How I wish those young ladies and women could talk!

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  3. Katia very beautiful! Your colors have a very soothing feel to them. You have a very good eye for color.

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  4. I love to stitch replicas because it is a way to connect to the past. A more simpler time when girls and women had time to create and learn and grow to be women of confidence and self accomplishment. I also like replicas for their beauty and as a way to reflex on my time spent through out the years. In a world now of instant this and instant that when so much time can be wasted and one may not now it, it is my way to show something for my time. I also love the way they look in my home. They reflex my eye to detail and my ability for patients to all that know me and visit my home. My family also is amazed at them, even my brothers.

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  5. I think so thank you
    and Bravo k'tia
    Moulinette

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  6. I like to create my little stitches and improvise according to my own taste, but when it comes to quaker samplers I tend to go for replicas. For example I added some of my own taste in my Beatrix Potter, even though respecting her choice of colours and with this one, I am following to the letter as possible, even with a crude fabric. It is my way of bringing her back to life, besides I just love her palette of colours.
    In my opinion all our pieces together make a "hymn" of her life: some of us chose "to be" in her lifetime, others departed from her life experience and built upon it.
    I am loving to see each personal choices and creations.

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  7. Beautiful colors, Katia, and unsual. I hope to see it when it is finished, too.

    The Arles bodices are fascinating! AS are the wonderful faces of Acworth students. Thank you for sharing these with us.

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  8. Beautiful color choices, Katia. Thank you for sharing this with us, and send us your updates!

    I started counted cross stitch again after a 25 year "break" (I was still making textiles, just a different medium), because of the wonderful samplers available to us today. It only took one look, and that was it. I love the history and beauty surrounding them.

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  9. Katia,
    your colours are beautiful.

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  10. Beautiful colors! What colors did Katia use?

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  11. I like staying true to a replica's design also, although will throw in my own, although, similar color choices.

    I do love the intermingling of the browns and blues in Katia's interpretation of Mary Wigham! I'm enjoying seeing the examples here since I'm too involved with the Beatrix Potter Sampler to currently join in the Mary Wigham SAL.

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  12. Katia,
    Your colors are lovely!!!! Please what colors did you use??
    I love the look of the browns & blues.
    Amitie,Karin :)
    in NY

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  13. Katia,
    I love your start of Mary Wigham!!! the blues & browns are so pretty together. Please tell me the colors you used if you can please??
    Amitie,Karin :)
    in NY

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  14. Hi Katia,
    I eally love your stitching!!! The blues & browns are lovely!!!Please what colors have you used??
    Amitie,Karin :)
    in NY

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  15. Wow! I really love these colors also...very soothing and peaceful. Beautiful work Katia. Would it be alright if I asked what colors you used in the fibers and the fabric? Thank you for sharing =)

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  16. Katia has just let me know that her colours are: DMC 747, 926, 927, 930, 931, 932, 3766, 3768, 844, 3781, 869, 829, 610 611, 613, 3045, 3032

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  17. so sorry I triple posted!!
    I did not know the first one took.
    Karin :)
    in NY

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  18. wow, into all interpretations of the MARY WINGAM SAL , this is the most beautiful for me!
    manu

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  19. Wonderful work. I love the designs and those soft and gentle colours.

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