FINALLY - Maybe!

Once I'd pulled it apart, I cut a whole bunch of 3" squares from the jacket. Some were just blue, some were just green, and some were blue and green with a pink yarn couched down the middle. The green is a yellow-green with layers of thread work in fuchsia, blue, purple, gold, and green. It looks like a boucle. After the pieces were cut out, all of the back was left as well as a whole bunch of bits. There's enough for at least one - if not two - purses. Perfect! I wasn't wearing the jacket anyway and I'd definitely use (or sell, or gift) a purse.

This piece is having a difficult birth. I really thought I'd be done by now and yet it seems like all I've done so far is dye, overdye, and shuffle fabric. Yesterday, I played with different background colors and square configurations for hours before deciding the green and blue squares looked the best on the stitched and over-dyed orange piece. Perfect - a decision made. NOT. It wasn't big enough for the rest of the plan so I picked out four different orange to rust pieces looking for the best match. You can see the comparisons below ONLY...




... with a solid-ish fabric, no matter how I arranged the blue, green, and blue/green pieces, the whole thing looked BORING. I could see the texture up close but from a distance, it was all blah and needed contrast which meant that if the squares looked plain then the background should have a whole lot more life. That thought led to the batik below which worked. The same yellow-green is in the print along with the compliment, red violet.

Even with a more active background, the squares were still big and plain. I thought hmm... what would happen if I put a bit of that light violet on top of the green? YES YES - as soon as I did that my mind started hopping. The picture below is for inspiration only. The "finished" piece is quite a bit different. I can see it done and - providing I'm right in what I think will happen - there will be some crusty surfaces added along with more color, a focal point, and a tension point. It's all good - LOL - hopefully!

So far, the background is layered and stitched with narrow, horizontal lines and I've just started to stitch the squares in place with a purple zigzag that barely shows. The edges are soft. The squares appear to melt into the background. FUN! The yellow-green showing on my monitor isn't quite right but at least you can get an idea of the edges. The color is actually much closer to the green in the batik. I finished stitching the background at 4:30 yesterday. It was another day of NOT moving forward fast but at least it concluded with me knowing what I'm doing next and bubbling with ideas.

This morning, I'm cleaning Kyle's room. That'll take a few hours and while I might rather be stitching, he comes home tomorrow - finally - I miss him - so cleaning has to be done today. Every summer, I clean his room. He looks forward to it - literally. You could ask him and he'd say one of the best things about going to camp is that when he gets home, his room will be clean. Love that... and the great big hug I'll get. Have a great weekend.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - feeling like I'm finally moving forward with this piece