the chosen one(s)

Deciding which background Mother’s Heart will have had some interesting comments happening when i posted yesterday, here and over on FB. Always good to get some input through someone else’s eyes and their “feelings” on a subject!

I’m torn now between these two:

I like the warm colouring of the first and the open white space, leaving lots of room for interpretative stitching. It also has that lovely extended “tubage” thing going on in the top right, joining the background to the heart. At the same time though, the nail impressions give (me) the wrong impression! This is not a sad or hard heart, rather one of softness, time, patience and natural aging.

The second one has that oh so interesting FrankenStitch possibility to it though. There’s enough warmth in the caramel colouring along that vertical grey and the impression of cracks/wounds/lacings//sutures (how life breaks often and mends (hopefully) ?) on the left and lacey holes on left and right sides that i feel there’s room to augment with the planned stitches i had in mind. I don’t want the background or background stitching to compete with the heart though, and have to be careful of the weight and density with the stitches i want to use and the motif. (And Meg sees ribs, i see bones in the grey line–how perfect is that????!!!)

And now i notice spines in the first–arghhhhh, decisions, decisions! Make up my tiny little mind!

And i have to take the heart apart–i see quite a few placement errors now that i’ve had time to mull over the look!

 

and Happy VD to you all :)

 

i’m still liking the pink pissiness

Am running out of the lovely pink and yellow woven damask jacquard whatever it is rayon, so improvised for the face–some of the dog spit resist snow dyed chiffon over yellow cotton.

and in my studio window, the surprise of a winter bloom

 

say cheese

All my samples want their day in the sun…..i’ve never spent as much time on this stage before, but i seem to have the patience and interest this “go round” No more Instant Gratification Girl here!

I’ve been working diligently on these every morning, then walk the DogFaced Girl for an hour or so (and shovel walks and feed the birds and squirrels) to refresh my brain and body, then make a few more notes and switch to some handwork. Seems to be the best way now for me. I feel i’m getting things done even if they aren’t are ready for public view. (Ya wanna know how i feel about Lalage  —my sewing machine by the way for the uninitiated, pronounced La-loj, with a soft j  —-  go read Patricia’s post and you’ll get it OH MY!!!!!! )

I’m playing with strange shapes, nodules and holes, manipulation, various thread weights, colour combinations and lots of free motion. Before i know it, each day i’ve got 4 hours worth of samples and notes, building quite a library. I don’t know how long it will be before i actually use some of the ideas in finished work, but that ain’t a bad thing. Maybe that’s why i have so many UNfinished pieces–couldn’t get to the next step after trying some wonderful new thing that couldn’t stand on its own.

I’ve also noticed that with my own work i then question as to how to get the same effect, or close at least, in hand work. I do love that ol’ push the needle by hoofie aspect, but i know it’s not all “translate-able”, not a bad thing either: new ideas come or can be accented that way.

There are also these that i previously posted:

And by the way, the StitchinFingers Machine Embroidery group is now open for “bizness”!!!

 

20 minutes here and there…..

Might even get it done by the 31st.

 

sampling for samplings sake

Also known as just screwing around!

I don’t know that any of these will actually ever be used as ideas for some actual work, but it keeps me occupied at least. My finger is almost healed so maybe tomorrow i can get back to some hand work. In the meantime, i need to be doing something, and slopping paint and dye around wasn’t particularly engaging, so let’s farfle around with Lalage–at the very least it’s cleaning all the carbon out, like a good rip down the highway at 169K when the car has been idle for months.

I like some of these effects, but looking at them, i also know that some are just samples for what the hell purposes. Could i, would i, ever use any of this on anything, or are they pointless except as colour, texture and machine vavoom avoidance tactics exercises? Ah, never say never: maybe someday down the road, it will be a good thing i’ve done these.

I see the potential for each stitch, but not used these ways specifically.

EDIT: i wrote this before the daily walk with DFG—and now i have some ideas where i can use some of this. Nothing like fresh air up the brain!

ADDENDUM: I noticed that on the stitchingfingers ning, there  was a request at some recent point for a machine embroidery group, but no one stepped up to be a moderator/admin. I have just messaged Mary Corbet, who is taking the reins from Sharon Boggon, and volunteered my services. If it gets up, will you join me?

2nd ADDENDUM: Mary has agreed and we will set the group up in January–that pesky Christmas thing gets in the way of SO many Important stuffs!

 

getting ruthless

With my recent studio purge, i’ve been looking at old  and unfinished work.

When i put the centre section in this one, i knew it was wrong as i beaded it. When i stitched the hand to the bottom, i knew it was really wrong. I put it away for a long while. (started in June of 2009, did a bit in January 2010, then NADA.)

In the spirit of “if it didn’t work, fix it”, even if that means ripping its guts out, i flipped it over, heaved a large “OMG what am i doing” sigh, girded my quivering artistic loins——- and cut all the teeny threads that held that heavy horrible hand. The fabric underneath ripped because it was weak, a found fabric from my first residency. I could feel my own skin rip as it happened, i swear, my baby! I’ll strap some big scraping stitches there to fix it.

Then i snipped the ones that held the beads and midsection stitching on, skillions of dabby bits of thread to tweezer out. Pulled out the fortunately large catchings around the edge of the panel and voila:

Now maybe i can do something with it, though at this point, Needle Shoving Finger is still healing, so perhaps in a week. (Thanks by the way for all the suggestions, but i think a rest from handwork is best.)

Still inventing new worlds too.

And giving the hairy eyeball to some other unfinished and unhappy bits—arlee scissorhands…………..

 

new worlds

Well, i know the end of the world is not the 21st because it’s that as tomorrow already in Australia–and i heard from a friend there, so all is well

While everyone else is running around in circles because of christmas, i’m just making circles, fattening the sample workbook, building the start of the “Work 2013″ files, relearning old skills–no stress, no fuss, no mess and guess what, no cost either. My pockets may be as empty as ever, but my inspiration bank is fuller every day.

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Sea Change is still travelling with the FAN Waterworks show. She’ll have made a fairly large circular trip herself by the time she comes home.

 

Karin has done it again, the determined dynamo of a scamp–next year we’ll be learning from Lisa Grey in a 3 day workshop, “The Art of Looking Sideways: Connecting Creativity and Play.”

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If  don’t post again before The Day, have a lovely, quiet, calm and warm one.

 

pink stinks!

Especially when it’s Gothic Garlic! Okay, maybe garlic doesn’t really look like this unless you’ve left it in the back of the fridge for months

I used a piece of cotton that was one of the crackle resist fails (also a snow dye fail)–the pinks were a near perfect match to the Jam Day paint experiments. I had played with the different line stitches on Lalage also and loved the raised effect with the heavier thread in the bobbin and a contrasting colour in the needle, so decided to use that lovely texture. The black fabric is a synthetic velvet that i lightly fused to the background first.

Now to add some hand embroidery and other thread effects–and maybe a little black lace? She’s kind of Gothicy Lolita-ish in my mind’s eye:)

And to refresh my eyes, i look to my stoodio window jungle and see this now:

 

more darn stitch experiments :)

I had forgotten about playing with this stitch in January of 2011—i think at the time i was going to use it on “Padded Cell; Boro’d Time”, but it didn’t fit there, so i just filed the idea. My memory has now been jogged by a commenter on Flickr, so must play some more with it!

i haven’t hooped with the latest experiments because the fabric is backed with a stabilizer of cotton flannelette–distortion could be interesting too though

And what if i put hand stitch on it before i did the machine work? And manipulated it? Or added manipulated fabric first? What if i did just rows like bricks of each motif?

It would be very easy to get carried away with the possibilities—have to remind myself that this is an enhancement of skill, revisions and updates in my learning, not the be all and end all, not of the sampling itself becoming little finished bits. How can i apply it to my work without belabouring it?

Yesterday was a case in point I laid out bits of synthetic roving and some angelina and messed about ending up with this. I suppose it’s a colour exercise at least because at the moment it feels rather un-satisfying and pointless to what i’m aiming for. (Duh, excuse me, these were to be primarily colour play, duh.)

My subconscious mind must have meant it to be for some reason though! And out of the corner of my eye all the while is this, so maybe somehow? ………….

I think this will be more about the line then the field.