Big Felt Flowers

It's been a while since I have spent some time with one of my favorite craft blogs, the Purl Bee. I particularly enjoy following Molly's Sketchbook, as she specializes in patchwork, and also does a lot of embroidery, Sashiko, and other beautiful stitching projects.

I was quite pleased to see Molly's Felt Flower Pillows project - I love the combo of the cheerful, bold yellow blooms and the more sedate neutral colors. There are so many great felt project on the web, but mostly on a real micro level (eg: verybigjen's amazing pincushions) - I like how Molly's project uses unexpectedly generous pieces of felt.

Dirty Lines: Illustrations and Soft-Core Embroideries

I'm having my first solo show in over 4 years - AND I'm showing my embroidery for the first time in a gallery. See below for details, and I'd love to see you there!

Bad Romance

Wow, once again it's been awhile since I've posted, but I haven't been idle. This is just a sneak peak of some larger embroidered art pieces intended for my solo art show coming up on March 27th and March 28th in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

A bit back, I found a cache of 1950s Romance Comics in Provincetown (I haven't posted the source material yet, but they are similar to these). I've been working my way up to larger wall pieces, and these are definitely the most complex I've done in terms of multiple characters, and comic book panel framing.

They took a looooong time to complete. I wanted to use a colorful but limited palette, and several times had to tear out and redo sections to make sure they composition was balanced. I decided to use thought bubbles but leave them blank, in order to allow the viewer to fill in the sordid plot with their own imagination.

UFOs

The quilting blogs often talk about UFOs - UnFinished Objects. I've had a lot of UFOs lying around the house. On President's Day I had hoped to complete a bunch of them but it wasn't destined to be.

My plan was to use the ocher colored embroidered piece above and create a variation of my previous pillow using some precious fabrics I've been dying to use. I was excited about the somewhat unusual color combination of ocher, teal, milk chocolate and khaki, and was ready to create another 12x16" pillowcase.



Sadly, the width was only 11" so I dug out my other pillow forms to consider my other options. I decided to do something with a log cabin pattern for a 16x16" pillow form. In my haste and lack of recent practice, I cut the embroidered square out without allowing for the seam allowance, making me a wee stressed about fucking it up.



I decided to use my stash of scraps, which is what I prefer to do for log cabins. It feels so thrifty!



I started the project, but it just didn't feel right.



Here's the final(ish) product - or as far as I got. Looks pretty good here but I really originally envisioned it complementing teal - not navy - and I just couldn't go through with it. I actually out the patchwork so I could start afresh with a combination closer to my original vision.

As I look at this pic, I think - that really looks pretty good! Why did I have to maul it and start over?

More fun with doodles

Finally, a new pillow! It's been a while since I put one of these together and I really enjoyed the zen of the whole process - getting out the ironing board, dusting off the sewing machine, fearing I wouldn't remember what I was doing but finding it was like riding the proverbial bicycle. Rotary cutting from muscle memory - something I always thought was hearsay but apparently a real phenomenon.



I did another version of the same pattern, this time in chocolate with avocado and pumpkin highlights.

Wanting to tackle something larger, I sketched out the next project quickly, while watching Friday Night Lights (the show, not the movie) on Netflix. Fantastic series, by the way. This is my lifelong preferred mode of creating - watching TV or on the subway (or BART in my SF days). My ideal mode isn't multitasking - it's dedicated dual-tasking.



This one looks prettier in person - kind of a peanut butter background. I took multiple pictures but really couldn't do better - I really could use a different camera/camera tips!



I then sketched out a more horizontal version - sort of a city scape, most likely for wall art rather than a pillow. I'm enjoying this series - quick to sketch out, quick to sew and produce. A nice way to get back in the game.