I Digress... Often.

I am, to a fault, a divergent thinker and a curious person. I'm always up for learning about, or at least admiring, a new artistic medium. The problem is that I often allow myself to be lured into trying my hand at these new adventures. I've finally decided that it's a good thing, something that I shouldn't try to reign in for now, but it definitely results in being spread a little thin.

Here's an example. I'm currently enrolled in a fantastic online course, Paper Quilting Explorations, with Terri Stegmiller. I'm not a quilter and clearly wool is my thing. The class is time-intensive (as evidenced by my lack of blogs over the past few days), but so worthwhile. I'm putting materials I'd purchased and stored away and learning about the characteristics of various surface design products.

This piece involved gluing white tissue paper to muslin after crumpling it up then smoothing it back out, spraying three hues of Adirondack Color Wash (I used hues close to the primaries I use for dyeing) and then spreading the dyes around on the surface. After drying I added a little gold Lumiere paint to bring in a little light, cut the sheet into six squares and darkened the edges with a black stamp pad that was almost dried out (oh well).

For the background I chose some sheet music that my mother-in-law had used as a young girl and glued it to muslin. The background was fused to Pellon. The squares were fussed to the background in a pleasing arrangement. Finally, a little machine stitching around the squares and the edges of the background were machine zig-zagged. I like it enough to hang it and will probably be matting it on a canvas, although I'm open for suggestions. I've added a close-up below.





THOSE COMMENTS...

JaneO, thank you the positive feedback on my chicken scratch embroidery. I took a look at the work you’re doing as a City and Guilds student, and it looks intense! I’ve been subscribing to your blog for awhile. City and Guilds, for anyone that’s not familiar with this, is an educational program leading to a diploma in stitched textiles.. At one time the program was supported by the British government! JaneO, if anything I said here was inaccurate or if you’d like to say more, please come back and leave another comment.

Helen, thank you for your compliment on the chicken scratch embroidery. Helen, also located in England, maintains a blog. It’s worth a click to check it out; scroll down a little to 11 August 2008 for a hilarious post on stash busting!

Thank you, Elizabeth, for your comments. I love the texture too- that’s one of the reasons I love working with felt. I realized that I had made a mistake in my description of the work. The lighter brown squares are couched, not appliquéd. Elizabeth has a great blog, Quieter Moments, in which she’s documenting her embroidery work.