Rewriting History...

or, in this case, restitching a piece.   I told you here that I intended to take some of the stitching in one of my rusted pieces out, so that I could do it again; well, once I'd started, I couldn't stop.  All of it, gone.  This particular piece was the third that I'd made of rust dyed silk, in what I thought was a series called 'Flotsam'.  The first I've already shown you, but I'm going to show it here, too, for the sake of comparison.

The second, framed in a similar way, is this one;

I used very little stitch, just enough to keep it interesting, in the same thread that I used in the third piece.  I clearly intended to make the second and third pieces very similar in nature, as the latter also had very little stitch in it.  But while the second piece has flow to it, encouraged by the stitch, the third piece didn't,  The stitch seemed to create little stagnant pools of stillness, which weren't good to look at.  I was happy enough about it at the time...but with hindsight, it just Didn't Work.

This was what it looked like before...

And... here is the final version (believe me, I'm not taking this lot out again!).

Much more stitch this time.  The piece feels very lively, as a result.  I decided that I preferred it the other way round, and as the piece of mother of pearl came off during the process, I turned it over to give a bit more contrast between it and the background.  The thread is a lovely variegated hand dyed brown with hints of gold and yellow.

I work often in series.  What I hadn't realised was that that can be a curse, as well as a blessing  In this case, I was so busy linking this piece with what had gone before it, that I failed to look at the piece itself, and see what it needed.  I've done that now, and I'm pleased with it.  And oddly enough, it links very nicely with the original starting place of the series...so there is a natural, rather than a forced, connection.  All in all, a useful piece of learning.

New Directions.

Firstly of course, Happy (if belated) New Year!  Our festive season introduced us to a new person, our grand daughter, Cara, who was born shortly before Christmas...here she is on her quilt...well, okay, half her quilt...

The quilt features some of my hand dyes, as well as some hand painted and printed fabric, along with a mixture of commercial fabrics.  I wanted to make something that represents my creative life, as well as something pretty..I think I achieved what I wanted to  The quilting is different in every block, featuring hearts and flowers, as well as a doll like shape, plus some stylised Macintosh roses, for a Scottish baby.  Though Charles Rennie was credited with these, it was, in fact, his wife, Margaret MacDonald, also an artist, who designed such  motifs.  She was a skilled artist, working in textiles and other media.  I hope she'd approve of my use of her motif.  More information about her is to be found here.

But I digress.  As usual.

Last year was difficult, for a variety of reasons, and it looks like this year will be little different.  I've been struggling with the demon depression, and my lovely husband has been struggling with unemployment, also a demon, with its own nasty consequences.  So this year is the year where I don't spend any money, but try to be as creative as possible with what I have, and with what surrounds me.  What I have, is quite substantial; like all quilters, I've got a substantial stash of cloth and threads.  And plenty of ideas about what to do with them!

I've been inspired, recently, by the work of a new Facebook friend, Fabienne Dorsman-Rey; check out some work and an artist's statement by her here .  She kindly suggested the book 'Eco Colour' by India Flint as a starting point, and I was given it for Christmas..  So, any dyeing I do this year, is likely to be of the natural variety.  But I had already started down that path a couple of years ago; if you are familiar with the book 'Exquisite Evolon', you will know that I give instructions for rust dyeing that most flexible of fabrics.  Mainly, though, I have rust dyed silk and cotton, and started a series of work called 'Flotsam', featuring hand stitched rust dyed silk with found objects.  This is the first of the series;

...and here is a detail;

I'm particularly fond of the piece of wood at the bottom of this image; its textures seem to echo the textures created by the hand stitching.  I started out machine stitching this piece, but soon realised that it just didn't look right to me.  Machine stitching gives a hard, regular line, regardless of how you vary the stitch length within the line.  That seemed lacking in the subtlety that the cloth shows, so I removed it, and started again by hand.  I think the piece has benefited from it, regardless of how long it takes.   It is, of course, a good thing to pick up and put down, and to take with me on journeys.  I find myself using hand stitch more and more, either in conjunction with machine stitch, or on its own.  It feels very personal.

So, I have looked out two large pieces of rust dyed silk... more in my next post.