My entry for the Loading Dock Gallery's August juried show - The Dog Days of Summer - is coming along well. In my last post I shared the centerpiece of the triptych I'm working on and the origins of the piece. The photos above share the left and right portions of the triptych.
The right section is embellished with hand couching. I've done herringbone stitches over hand-dyed 5400 rayon threads from Stef Francis. These rayon threads can be dicey to work with as they are very slippery and they unravel very easily, but the color and sheen they add are well worth the trouble to me. I often use them in machine couching, anchoring the ends with tight satin stitches. This time I tried the technique of threading them through a fat needle so I could plunge the ends through the fabric to anchor them on the back of the piece. They will not hold a knot, so I used the couching thread to do several overcast stitches to hold the ends to the backing felt. That seemed to work pretty well. The left section I'm embellishing with seed beads in a pattern to echo the couching on the right section. it has been quite a while since I've done any beading. It feels good to get back to it again. I found I had several colors in my bead stash that went very well with the fabric colors in this. I hope to finish this beading today so that I can work on mounting the pieces when i get back to the studio tomorrow.
0 Comments
Here's another installment in my "keep me going" series--this process of creating yardage from my scrap bin. As I was working on this batch of green scraps, my mind wandered as usual. I was thinking about a couple of things that came together in this project. I noticed that many of the scraps I was using included a lot of brown and that I'd need to pay attention to how I put things together so that my final piece would read more green than brown. The other thing I was thinking about was the upcoming juried show at the Loading Dock Gallery and what I was going to submit. The theme of the show is Dog Days of Summer. I've been stumped about that for a while, but a phrase that popped into my mind while I was doing this piecing helped me figure it out. The green/brown balance in my piece brought to mind the way the grass in fields and lawns often turns to brown in August if the summer is dry. This thought gave me the idea to turn this particular fabric into a piece called "Keep Watering that Garden." It will be the center panel of a triptych. The other two panels will use smaller creations from the same fabrics. The piece is about how you have to keep working at things, even just a little, even when it's hard, or you're hot and tired. This central panel includes embroidered words--my musings as I put this together. The other two will be embellished differently. After a bit of a rocky start to the day (couldn't take a shower at the Y after my water fitness class), things totally turned around for me. At this juncture I'm walking on air.
Even the lack of showers couldn't keep me down for long because my plan for the morning was to go to Nashua Sew and Vac to buy a new sewing machine. It would be my first new machine since 1971, so I was very excited. I have been using borrowed machines for the last several years. Recently I decided that I really should break down and invest in my own machine. I stopped there last week to see what they had and what it might cost for what I would need. I made a tentative decision on one then, but didn't have the time that day to actually purchase it. Today was my day to go back. I had a little time between my exercise class and when the store opened, so I stopped at Michael's to buy canvases for the next wall art project I have in mind. It turned out that the only multi-pack of the one size I wanted had a damaged canvas in it. The little hole didn't render the canvas unusable for my purposes, but still I thought I should see if maybe they'd discount it a bit. I hoped for maybe 20% off since it was just 1 of 6 canvases that had a problem. Boy was I glad that I asked - they gave me 70% off. Needless to say I was delighted, but I didn't realize that it was a good omen for the day. My luck got even better when I went to Nashua Sew and Vac. I discovered that since I went in last week, they had started a new promotion that meant I got a $200 "shopping spree" when I purchased the machine I wanted. I immediately ordered a new Sew Steady table for it and still have money left to spend. I know it will burn a hole in my pocket and I'll be quite ready to spend it when I go back to pick up the table. I can't believe my luck. I wonder what else will happen today. For right now, I can't wait to set up my new machine and start sewing. First though I need to cut out my next project, so I need to remind myself to have patience... |
AuthorAnn M. Lee Archives
May 2015
Categories
All
|
Proudly powered by Weebly