Prep And Play

It's not all stitch, you know... sometimes you have to do a bit of prep work.  Yesterday, I sat with one of the pieces I'm working with and selected the threads to use with it.  And then I wound the skeins into balls.  I never used to bother, but they get horrendously tangled, which is wasteful.  My grandmother was a knitter; I can remember sitting, arms outstretched, with a hank of wool wrapped around them, as she wound balls from it.  It's not so simple when it's small skeins of thread, and no human available to hold them.  The first two went fine, though... the third, not so good.

From this, to this.  It tangled from the very beginning, and got progressively worse.  Sigh.  My own incompetence, I'm sure.  I did consider ditching it, at one point, but remembered I might need more than the one skein, so persevered; it's ready to stitch with now, as are they all. 

I thought, after that, I deserved to play a bit.  In the UFOs there was something I'd prepared when I was still teaching, as a possible sample for a possible course on abstract work.  Three ovals, cut from Evolon, and then cut into randomly, like this. 

They're placed on grey hand dye, one of the few bits remaining to me (yes, I know, I've got a shelf full of fabric for dyeing' anyone want to come and play with me?).  Looking at this image, it strikes me that this would be a good way of making semi abstract flowers... but that wasn't my intention here.  I wanted to rearrange the cut pieces to make an interesting pattern.  The evolon has fusible on the back; it's a cross between Matisse papercuts and tweets quilts, now that I think about it.  There really is no idea that's completely new.

Looking at these, I decided the individual elements were too thick, and so cut into them again. 

That's better.  This, is better still...

I may fiddle with it a bit more, add some space between the individual elements, perhaps adjust one of them that's pulling my eye as an exception to the way the others have been cut (see if you notice it, a kind of textile Where's Wally?).  Or maybe I'll leave it as it is.  I like it.