Orange Category Winner - Rainbow of Stitches Contest

Little Tiger's Orangey Celebration embroidery, originally uploaded by Joey's Dream Garden (formerly Joey 7).

I think (hope!) that you realise how difficult it was to pick a winner - I'd really like to have picked a few!

Well, without further ado, here is the winner of the Orange category. I picked it because Joey has used a very limited number of colours to great effect. And the use of several different stitches gives great texture to the piece. A job very well done!

What inspired your entry?
My love of the colour orange! For me, it's the best colour because it's warm and makes me feel relaxed. It's one of the colours of a beautiful sunset and the colour of my favourite flower, the California poppy. It ranges from deep, rich rust, through the brightest, juiciest oranges, to pale pinky peach. It's a happy, bouncy colour!

What is your favourite stitch?
The french knot, partly because when I finally learnt it after years of not getting it, I felt a real sense of achievement! It was like discovering one of the deep mysteries of the universe... I love it because it's so versatile, you can use it to fill areas with one colour for a great texture, to achieve an effect like Seurat's pointillism or just add a few little dots on a tiny embroidery.

Who or what inspires you to stitch?
I love embroidery as a means to create pictures; I'm attracted to the beauty of threads of different colours skillfully worked into amazing stitches. Embroidery can be done by just about anyone; plenty of us have done embroidery at primary school. It's such a versatile art form and I love to see how far it can be pushed. I myself have a long way to go!

How long have you been stitching and how did you get started?
My mum taught me a few basic stitches like backstitch and chain stitch, when I was about 7 years old (which was partly to get me to help her darn socks) but it's only just in the last two years that I've come back to embroidery and started to extend my repertoire of stitches. I find online video libraries of stitches, like Mary Corbet's Needle N' Thread how-to videos really useful, because not only can you see the stitches being made, you can learn at your own pace.

Are there any stitchers in the Feeling Stitchy Flickr pool you have noticed?
Yes! But I'll just talk briefly about three... I love how Palewildwoodflwr's Happy Little Tree shows beautifully what you can do with one stitch (chain stitch) and one colour, to create texture and the illusion of depth. I also really like Kajin's Hommage à Blossfeldt because it reflects the beauty of simple plant shapes which Karl Blossfeldt captured in his botanical photographs. What I like about Alli Coate's Transparency are the holes in the fabric, to show another layer behind. The embroidery is so simple, but it has so much potential for artistic experimentation.