The Canvaswork Abstract Garden

The Canvaswork Abstract Garden

The Canvaswork Abstract Garden

Following on from the Knot Garden, I decided to play a little more with the idea of using the canvas as a background, rather than covering it entirely. Since I already knew the canvas would not be covered, I chose a piece of dyed canvas (from “Kate’s Kloths”, which I haven’t been able to find online).

The first element was the simple path in expanded brick stitch, worked in wool. The rest of the panel was then built up as a pattern of varying stitches and threads. There was no predetermined idea, simply the aim of keeping a sense of balance and rhythm in the pattern densities. You will notice that block sizes and shapes are repeated, reflected across the path which snakes across the centre.

I’m not particularly comfortable with abstract work or even with designing it, so this repetition and reflection of the blocks was a way to give myself a structure for the piece. Otherwise I find abstract work often feels rather chaotic and it doesn’t offer me the chance to puzzle out “a good stitch to represent such-and-such”, which is where a lot of the fun of the Persian Fantasy came from.

This was an interesting exercise, but like the Knot Garden, it has remained as a piece of canvas, not mounted, framed or incorporated into anything, because I really haven’t a clue what to do with it!

5 Comments

  1. karen says:

    it’s a beautiful stitch library…you don’t need to do anything with it except care for it and know it’s there…

  2. Elmsley Rose says:

    Wot Karen said. I like it 🙂 Lovely intense colours.

  3. Action Ma'am says:

    This one is definitely a vegetable garden and with a lot of iron in the soil (the red background). It reminds me of how satisfyingly pretty my veg patch looked last year – for about two weeks!

  4. Janice says:

    Love it! I didn’t notice the reflected shapes until you pointed out. The stitches and colours make them sufficiently different that this doesn’t immediately spring out, although the sense of balance does. I love the colours too.

  5. […] may recall that I worked an abstract piece of canvaswork inspired by a vegetable garden. When I’d finished it, I didn’t like it very much, and […]