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







Saturday, September 5, 2009

For the edge

I have decided to edge the cloth for ''Sparkle'' with prairie points. Would you like a mini ''walk through'' of how I did it? You are getting one anyway! Hope you don't mind... Yesterday I marked out my cloth, 6x4cm rectangles and the pink marks you can see are little dots made with tailors chalk which mark the centre, just a guide for me and not essential unless you have the kind of brain that wanders! I then embellished and this piece was damp stretched overnight.
(note to anyone that cares........they don't have to be 6x4cm, they can be any size you want and I tried a few before settling for 6x4.)


Next I cut out all my little rectangles, tiny little post it notes of embroidery!


Then I had to fold but stupid me forget to take pictures of this bit, sorry! The pink tailors chalk is no longer visible though as it's turned under during folding. and voila! Prairie points for the edge of my cloth. I only made 12 to see if it worked and something tells me I am going to need a LOT more so I promise to show you the folding when I do the rest. And please don't tell the teacher but some of them don't have perfect points as I am sure you can see, I will have to sort that out before I put them on the real thing and also don't tell the teacher that I start sentences with ''and''!! appalling grammar.



Now I have a bit of a dilemma going on. (it's becoming a habit!) Sparkle is in november, if I want ''wrapping cloths'' for Sparkle it's not that far off, they take a long time to make. If I want regular pictures for blogworld I can't just make ''wrapping cloths'' as they are so time consuming and don't really progress at the rate of two posts a week. The shop has been doing quite well this past couple of weeks, I want to keep up the momentum. Dilemma, find a balance......with my brain...ha! The thinking cap is on, brain ticking and all that but don't hold your breath.
Finally, you must look here, more mind blowing loveliness about me, I am so grateful.

6 comments:

Jane said...

This is going to make a lovely edge, I like it. And I won't tell teacher if you don't, lol. By the way, everything said is true

jude said...

i love your organized approach and ability to create repetition...

Katy Swift said...

This is really interesting to see and the reverse picture in the previous post. It's like catching a glimpse behind the curtain. Thank-you

Gina said...

This is taking prairie points to new level... beautiful!

jennyflowerblue said...

This is more gorgeousness! I am so glad the shop is doing well, great news!

Janice / Dancing with Sunflowers said...

What you need is millions of French knots. That will help you decide - well it did last time, anyway! Thanks for this tutorial. I have a project that will never be finished unless I learn an effective way of edging it, and this could be the one! Looking forward to seeing how you folded it when you have time - thank you! Hope school has started off well.
Janice.