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Also available in the series: 978-1-84448-731-8 978-1-84448-988-6 978-1-78221-564-6 Letitia Thompson, better known as Mrs Bertimus, has worked in art education for over twenty years and loves meeting kindred spirits on her painting, mixed media and textiles workshops. Being able to watch nature on her doorstep has permeated the imagery and storytelling of Letitia’s work, and she continues to explore her make-believe world of painted, collaged and stitched characters. Her artwork is primarily inspired by the slow pace and sense of community in her day-to-day village life – as is her nom de plume, Mrs Bertimus, which she took from a neighbour’s story of a blackbird that regularly visited for crumbs. ’For as long as I can remember I have been torn between fine art and textiles, and it took me a long time to realize that I didn’t have to ‘pick a team’! In fact, most of the principles that apply to painting will apply to machine embroidery and I find that each discipline sup- ports the other.’ Letitia has exhibited across the UK, where she lives in a small village in the Lincolnshire countryside. For more inspiration, visit: mrsbertimus.co.

Informations

Publié par	Search Press
Date de parution	30 juin 2021
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781781267899
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	7 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0800€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Also available in the series:
978-1-84448-731-8
978-1-84448-988-6
978-1-78221-564-6
Letitia Thompson, better known
as Mrs Bertimus, has worked in art
education for over twenty years
and loves meeting kindred spirits
on her painting, mixed media and
textiles workshops. Being able
to watch nature on her doorstep
has permeated the imagery and
storytelling of Letitia’s work, and
she continues to explore her
make-believe world of painted,
collaged and stitched characters.
Her artwork is primarily inspired
by the slow pace and sense of
community in her day-to-day
village life – as is her nom de
plume, Mrs Bertimus, which she
took from a neighbour’s story of a
blackbird that regularly visited for
crumbs.
’For as long as I can remember
I have been torn between fine art
and textiles, and it took me a long
time to realize that I didn’t have to
‘pick a team’! In fact, most of the
principles that apply to painting
will apply to machine embroidery
and I find that each discipline sup-
ports the other.’
Letitia has exhibited across
the UK, where she lives
in a small village in the
Lincolnshire countryside.
For more inspiration, visit:
mrsbertimus.co.uk
Animals
Stitched Textiles

Mrs Bertimus
Search Press
Animals
Stitched Textiles
First published in Great Britain 2021
Search Press Limited
Wellwood, North Farm Road,
Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3DR
Illustrations and text copyright
© Letitia Thompson 2021
Photographs by Mark Davison at
Search Press Studios
Photographs and design copyright
© Search Press Ltd. 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book, text,
photographs or illustrations may be reproduced or
transmi°ed in any form or by any means by print,
photoprint, microﬁlm, microﬁche, photocopier,
internet or in any way known or as yet unknown,
or stored in a retrieval system, without wri°en
permission obtained beforehand from Search Press.
ISBN: 978-1-78221-822-7
ebook ISBN: 978-1-78126-789-9
The Publishers and author can accept no
responsibility for any consequences arising from
the information, advice or instructions given in this
publication.
Readers are permi°ed to reproduce any of the
artwork in this book for their personal use, or for
the purpose of selling for charity, free of charge
and without the prior permission of the Publishers.
Any use of the artwork for commercial purposes is
not permi°ed without the prior permission of the
Publishers.
Suppliers
If you have diﬃculty in obtaining any of the materials
or equipment mentioned in this book, then please
visit the Search Press website for details of suppliers:
www.searchpress.com
You are invited to visit the author’s website at:
www.mrsbertimus.co.uk
Front cover
Midnight Fox
35 x 37.5cm (13¾ x 14¾in)
Page 1
Full Moon Hare
25.5 x 35cm (10 x 14in)
Pages 2–3
Ghost Hare
14 x 42.5cm (5½ x 16¾in)
Acknowledgements
Firstly I would like to thank Edward Ralph, my editor, for helping
and encouraging me every step of the way and for magically
pu°ing what was in my head onto the page. I can never thank you
enough for all you have done for me.
Thank you so much Roz for ﬁnding me and for believing that
I could do this.
My thanks go to Mark for the fabulous photography and for
making me laugh during the portrait shots!
Thank you so much to Juan, Marrianne and Emma, for all the care
and a°ention to detail in the design of this book, and to all the rest
of the team at Search Press.
Thank you for everything, Ian, Lo°ie and Middie: I couldn’t have
done this without you.
Huge thanks and love to my Mum and Tommy: you have always
supported my artistic adventures and dreams.
Thank you Nanna Dorothy and Auntie Maxine for sharing
your stories.
My thanks go to Jean, Queen of the village, for telling me about
Mr Bertimus.
To Sam Christer and Debs Theobald, thank you both for your
friendship, help and laughs.
Many thanks go to the JLC Creative Arts Department;
Kelly Boyd, Pat, Julie and Laura Charley Robinson, for all the help,
encouragement and advice you have given me.
Thank you to my two very patient friends, Ginny and Hannah, for
helping me with Photoshop.
Thanks to the team at d4daisy, for their support and
encouragement, which gave me the conﬁdence to pursue
this book.
I’d also like to thank the amazing online community of artists,
creators and friends for your support and for keeping me company
as I work in my studio. For ﬁnding and supplying beautiful vintage
fabrics, trimmings, collage papers and inspirational ephemera, my
thanks go to:
Louise Presley: www.louisepresleyartist.com
Deborah Greensill: instagram.com/dsg1964
Wendy Shaw: instagram.com/ticking_stripes
Many thanks to Julie Steel and Emma Roberts of The Steel Rooms
( www.thesteelrooms.com ) for your encouragement and
friendship.
Thank you Louise Presley, for showing me that there was a place
for my textile art.
My heartfelt thanks to Louise Asher, for your constant support
and for inviting me to teach freestyle machine embroidery at the
magical Hope & Elvis Studio ( www.hopeandelvis.com ).
I’d also like to thank the wonderful community of creative souls
whom I have taught, both at my workshops and at college. You are
all an inspiration.
Contents
Introduction 6
Materials 8
Where to start
14
Core techniques
Composition 30
Going further
48
Advanced techniques
Telling a story
Sausage Dog
80
94
Step-by-step project
Midnight Fox
104
Step-by-step project
Acrobat Mouse
112
Step-by-step project
Afterword 120
Templates 122
Index 128
6
Introduction
For as long as I can remember I have been
torn between ﬁne art and textiles, and it took
me a long time to realize that I didn’t have to
‘pick a team’. In fact, most of the principles
that apply to painting also apply to machine
embroidery; I ﬁnd that each discipline
supports the other.
Once I realized that all you needed was an
embroidery foot, my sewing machine became
a drawing machine. I am such a ﬂibbertigibbet
that I will happily ﬂit from one to the other,
and oﬅen the characters that appear in my
paintings will pop up in my embroideries and
vice versa.
Drawing, painting and stitching animals
has always fascinated
me. I really enjoy trying
to work out the anatomy
and describing the
texture of fur. I produce
representational
animal artwork as
well as more stylized,
anthropomorphic characters. Animal faces
are so expressive, and it is usually as I’m
creating the embroidery or painting that a
story or character begins to emerge. It’s oﬅen
the combination of a particular scrap of fabric
and a quick snap of an animal – perhaps
simply a dog that I’ve seen in the street, or a
hare in a ﬁeld – that sparks oﬀ an idea.
I don’t approach my textiles practice as
an embroiderer, but as a ﬁne artist using
the fabric as paint and the sewing machine
needle as the pencil. Although I haven’t
been formally trained in the traditions of
embroidery, it is such an expressive and
adaptable genre. I just hope that I don’t oﬀend
any embroidery purists!
As a teenager, my sewing machine oﬀered
me a chance to really express myself. As
I could rarely buy new outﬁts before going
on a night out (living in a small Northern
town, I usually couldn’t ﬁnd the clothes
that I wanted), every Saturday morning
I would visit my local charity shop. There, I
would chat to the lovely lady who worked
there, and buy vintage ‘granny dresses’ that
I would take home and use to whizz up an
outﬁt before hi°ing the town. Years later,
when I discovered
machine-embroidery,
my sewing machine
oﬀered me another way
for self-expression and
helped me to stitch my
characters and stories.
I think that it is this
innate sense of mending, ﬁxing and patching
that entwines embroidery with a sense of
family and personal narrative. Whenever I am
handling vintage fabrics and quilt pieces
I feel a great sense of responsibility to ‘do
it justice’ – but I also feel as though I am
adding to its life story. When we take the
time to repair or re-purpose a faded piece
of textiles it becomes reﬂective of our own
values – we shouldn’t abandon those things of
worth simply because they have become old
or worn.
Once I realized that all
you needed was an
embroidery foot, my
sewing machine became
a drawing machine.
7
S°cky notes
You wilL seE sticky not±s with hiNts aNd tips writTeN oN them
scatTered throughout this boOk. I doN
’t think that I coUld maNage
without My b±loved sticky not±s – th±y are aN ±sSeNtial part
of My creative proc±sS! IN fact, Most Mornings wheN I wake Up
aNd pUlL back the dUvet, a cloud of flutTering paper filLs the air –
if inspiratioN strik±s iN the MidDle of the night, I have to jot dowN
the idea qUickly!
Minuet
26 x 29cm (10¼ x 11½in)
Combining stories and characters with materials
that have their own tales to tell is so rewarding;
providing, as it does, an escape from the everyday
world.
8
Materials
Machine embroidery is a very forgiving technique. More oﬅen than not,
a ‘mistake’ can be quickly patched over – and oﬅen leads to a more
exciting result! You don’t need mountains of material, either – the following
pages explain what you’ll need for the projects and techniques in the book,
but you should absolutely feel free to experiment and play.
A selection of fabrics from my ever-growing and changing collection.
Fabrics
In my opinion you can’t beat the texture, colour – and
mysterious past life – of vintage and recycled fabric. Who
knows what conversations that ta°ered lace tablecloth
witnessed or the holiday romance that faded summer dress
twirled through? As you can tell, I get rather carried away by
pre-loved treasures – not only is the fabric oﬅen wonderful to
work with, but the imagined history sparks many ideas and
stories as I stitch on them.
Another advantage of working with such materials is that
you will need to pop into second-hand shops to top up your
supply of fabric