Good Evening,
Well after a near fatality with my computer, here is today's new piece. I made it much earlier today then spent the afternoon rinsing 30 or so yards of fabric. Then, I took a nasty fall in some soapy water that was on the floor in the rinse out area of the studio and everything kinda took a nose dive after that. But, I really like this piece.
I began with some green dye painted batting. I topped it with this somewhat weird, highly decorative piece of hand dye that is mostly shades of blue/blue green but has these weird golden areas. It is highly mottled and I've never really known quite what to do with it. So, I ripped a large piece and covered most of the batting with it. I topped it with a rectangle of light blue linen that had some nice, long, wispy, frayed edges. I stitched the linen down with matching thread and close together straight lines then I stitched around all of the dark blue and gold sections then heavily stippled everywhere else around the blue and gold. Then I went up above the light blue rectangle and stitched sections of lines alternating between vertical and horizontal. This change in stitch style really changed the look of the fabric.
Next, I stitched a bit of rickrack that had been dyed browny gold down the top edge of the light blue linen. I then ripped some strips of cotton voile that had been dyed a truer, brighter blue and rolled up one end of each strip and tacked it down beginning at the rickrack and stitching down past the edge of the linen. I rough cut the loose ends at various angles and lengths and let them curl around at will. I then rolled up several ripped strips of the voile and stitched them down the center of the rickrack. I finished it all off with small green, dyed bone beads.
I love the messiness, the texture, the strange colors/mottling, the loose strands and the beads. They all work together to provide great visual and tactile interest. For such a small piece, it packs a wallop!
Till tomorrow,
Heather
2 comments:
I'm sure glad you are alright after your fall. Holy cow, that is terrible!
This really does have a lot going on, but you have managed to make it very cohesive with the use of color.
I think the element that really brings it all together is that strip of gold rick rack. It pulls out the areas of gold in the background and the light areas in the batting.
Though it might not qualify as a true study to fit into one of the color lessons, the complement of the yellow orange with the various blues is very pleasing to the eye.
I really enjoy the depth that the darker dyed areas of the background provide, and in contrast, the luminosity of the lighter areas.
The texture, both visual and tactile is wonderful! It makes me want to touch it and really find out what is where, because though I can see up close that the dark blue vertical strips are on top of the linen, when I get a little further away from the piece, they look deeper, or like they could be breaks in the linen and be further back.
These pieces you are making every day are a wonderful example of how full of life and expression hand dyes can be!
Loovely blog you have here
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