As I recall, I was fairly non-committal about my goals for last week. The hope was that I'd do something spectacular to some rather blah painted pieces. That's pieces plural. If you've been following along, you know that ended up being painted piece singular and nothing spectacular transpired. I keep going back to stare at it, contemplate it, even whined about it to two of my on-line groups. What a supportive bunch they are, ready and willing to take on my problem and suggests ways to deal with it. So I may give it another go this week.
I was feeling so low about my lack of success on that primary goal that it quickly drove me right to binding the Easter piece. Binding - I can do it in my sleep it seems, so expected easy success there. Ah, but I have a habit of creating problems for myself, and my binding effort was no different. I'd chosen a light fabric and single, not double fold method plus a wider than usual dimension. This resulted in shadowing that can't easily be fixed (and no, there's not enough fabric for a double fold binding). While I let my inner critic run rampant, I also tried to convince myself that it didn't matter - that this piece wasn't destined for any big competition or exhibit; it was more an exercise in technique and design, an idea I needed to get out of my system, the first in a possible series or study of the floating squares and grid. But I'm never easily convinced by this argument. I'm not a perfectionist, I'm not, I'm not! Well, maybe a little...
This shadowing makes a perfect line through the middle of the binding, so I wondered if I could couch more of the chenille thread over that line to camouflage it. Could, but should? Probably not. And then I thought about running a line of beads along it. Ah yes! I have just the right twisted bugle beads and I think adding a bit of sparkle out there on the light binding will really improve the piece. As they say, not a mistake but a design opportunity! Unfortunately, I wanted to be done with this piece and am only partly done hand stitching the binding to the back. It's hard to think of spending even more time on hand beading, but I'm going to do it. Maybe not this week, but eventually.
The journal size version got finished up yesterday too, and not happily. It's not a good piece and I don't plan to display it - it will just be a good reference of what NOT to do. So I didn't want to spend a lot of time finishing the edges with a binding or frame. Keep seeing where others satin stitch edges of smaller pieces so thought this would be a good place to try that. It might have work had I not used metallic thread, but I got sucked in by having a perfect color and thinking it would balance all that sparkle of the foil. I didn't have trouble on my test piece, or with the first run around with a loose zigzag, but when I stitched the real deal with the wide and tight satin stitch, the metallic thread decided it didn't want to play. Every few inches or so it would skip a stitch and/or snag in the bobbin case - even though I was using the proper needle, had the tension loose, sewed slow. Some days you just can't catch a break. I eventually made it around, not worrying about securing ends when I stopped and started - as I said, this is just a reference piece. Gads, but I'm glad to be done with it! You can see more detail by clicking on the picture for a larger version.
So in a way, I met my goals of last week - minimally. I'll try to have some better vibes this week when I do get a chance to paint or stitch. I think this week will also see some straightening up. The clutter is really bothering me as well as knowing several pieces need their documentation completed. So let's make that a goal for this week too - to catch up on documentation and make a concerted effort to "clear the decks."
I was feeling so low about my lack of success on that primary goal that it quickly drove me right to binding the Easter piece. Binding - I can do it in my sleep it seems, so expected easy success there. Ah, but I have a habit of creating problems for myself, and my binding effort was no different. I'd chosen a light fabric and single, not double fold method plus a wider than usual dimension. This resulted in shadowing that can't easily be fixed (and no, there's not enough fabric for a double fold binding). While I let my inner critic run rampant, I also tried to convince myself that it didn't matter - that this piece wasn't destined for any big competition or exhibit; it was more an exercise in technique and design, an idea I needed to get out of my system, the first in a possible series or study of the floating squares and grid. But I'm never easily convinced by this argument. I'm not a perfectionist, I'm not, I'm not! Well, maybe a little...
This shadowing makes a perfect line through the middle of the binding, so I wondered if I could couch more of the chenille thread over that line to camouflage it. Could, but should? Probably not. And then I thought about running a line of beads along it. Ah yes! I have just the right twisted bugle beads and I think adding a bit of sparkle out there on the light binding will really improve the piece. As they say, not a mistake but a design opportunity! Unfortunately, I wanted to be done with this piece and am only partly done hand stitching the binding to the back. It's hard to think of spending even more time on hand beading, but I'm going to do it. Maybe not this week, but eventually.
The journal size version got finished up yesterday too, and not happily. It's not a good piece and I don't plan to display it - it will just be a good reference of what NOT to do. So I didn't want to spend a lot of time finishing the edges with a binding or frame. Keep seeing where others satin stitch edges of smaller pieces so thought this would be a good place to try that. It might have work had I not used metallic thread, but I got sucked in by having a perfect color and thinking it would balance all that sparkle of the foil. I didn't have trouble on my test piece, or with the first run around with a loose zigzag, but when I stitched the real deal with the wide and tight satin stitch, the metallic thread decided it didn't want to play. Every few inches or so it would skip a stitch and/or snag in the bobbin case - even though I was using the proper needle, had the tension loose, sewed slow. Some days you just can't catch a break. I eventually made it around, not worrying about securing ends when I stopped and started - as I said, this is just a reference piece. Gads, but I'm glad to be done with it! You can see more detail by clicking on the picture for a larger version.
So in a way, I met my goals of last week - minimally. I'll try to have some better vibes this week when I do get a chance to paint or stitch. I think this week will also see some straightening up. The clutter is really bothering me as well as knowing several pieces need their documentation completed. So let's make that a goal for this week too - to catch up on documentation and make a concerted effort to "clear the decks."
No comments:
Post a Comment