For centuries women have used cloth as a tool of comfort and as an expression of beauty within their homes. Creating cloth for warmth, cloth for shelter, our female predecessors embellished these linens with hand stitch using laborious and time consuming techniques thereby enhancing the functional beauty of objects which enveloped and protected their families. Inspired by these women I hope my creations pay tribute to and recognise the devotion expressed in cloth by our female ancestors .







''the use of traditional often time consuming process alludes to the devotion of a mother''. c K. A. Ruane 2007







Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Decision Time and Lack of Progress

I think you are all going to have to bear with me for a while. There hasn't been a lot of embroidery going on around here these past two days. I have a STINKING cold and it is extremely difficult to embroider onto white silk whilst you are sneezing at the rate of approximately 10 times a minute. (o.k. maybe slightly exaggerated but it certainly feels like it happens that often) What I have managed to do however is join some hexagons together for my cloth. They still have the tacking stitches in place, hence the scruffy stitches you can see.




I decided this morning to have a play with all the bits of my cloth to see where everything would look best placed. I also wanted to have a play with my latest mini cloth, try and get some ideas for finishing, edges etc. So this is how my table looks today, with fingers crossed for a cessation of sneezing.




Here I am still deciding where to place the patchwork section when it is complete, (which may be some time the way things are going) I absolutely love this piece of work, my favourite part being how well the embroidered cotton tape sits on the silk, the contrast.


This cloth is going to be the first one I try on etsy. It will be interesting to see if it sells there and if it does o.k. that is probably going to become my main outlet. Exhibitions are a good way of getting your name known but I am beginning to question the wisdom of having my work tied up in a venue for six weeks, gaining recognition and compliments, but without sales. Sometimes I think it's just a very expensive ego trip.

I am off to find a tissue!!

4 comments:

jude said...

bearing with you is as good as anything i could think of doing....just staring at the intermission is good enough for me. this stuff is great!

Anonymous said...
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Needles said...

I love the way Jude says that. Staring at the intermission is indeed a wonderful thing.

Anonymous said...

Needles(s) to say i hope you get well and give your brother a call sometime.

Andy / Swindon