Byzantium postcard

When I washed off the soluble paper, this is what the stitched surface looked like. I chose the deep orange because that colour is the background on a couple of Byzantine icons I really liked.

I used the soldering iron to distress the surface fabric. I had hoped it would melt and allow the brown underneath fabric to show through. But it didn't quite go to plan. The weft fabrics melted but the warp ones didn't. They happen to be vertical on the postcard, so it gave me an interesting worn fabric look. I actually quite like it, as it makes the textile look worn but it wasn't actually the look I was aiming for. I chose the high areas of the surface, as being the ones most likely to show wear.

Slow week

This week I've fallen into a slump. Partly physical, partly a lack of time, and partly reaching the moment of frustration that I usually reach at some point, when I really don't like what I've done so far and wonder if it will ever be worth finishing. I'll press on, because I know I usually end up liking what I've done at the end, but it's frustrating.

OK, this is what I did on the weekend:


Cute, aren't they? The big one is my baby, the little one is grandchild number 1, administering a very sloppy kiss. It was great to visit them and see how the grandkids have grown in the short time since I last saw them.

And this is what I did this week on Rites of Passage - coming along nicely:


I've made the colours very intense and rich, so it's recognisable as a Polynesian island scene but also looks a little bit strange and unrealistic. Well, that's the plan....

And this is the postcard I'm making for the Sailing to Byzantium challenge on Design Bytes Down Under.

Postcard 6in x 4in

It's a motif on a pier in the church of St Polyeuktos from ancient Byzantium. I looked at lots of photos of Byzantine art, and decided the things I liked best were the architectural motifs. I played around with a lot of different motifs, and finally decided on this one. This is the line drawing printed onto soluble paper and stitched with dark navy thread. Tomorrow, I'll show you what it looks like with the paper removed (right now it's still wet so the colours are deeper than normal). I still have a few things to do tomorrow. The motif is stitched onto two layers of fabric, backed with Timtex for stiffening. The bottom layer is silk, the upper layer a synthetic fabric, in colours that reminded me of Byzantine icons. Tomorrow, I plan to burn back the synthetic a little with a soldering iron, to give the distressed look that the icons have from so much fervent handling during 1000-1500 years of worship. Hopefully, the underlying silk will show through. I want to brush on some gold highlights too. Hurry, hurry, it's due the end of the month!

Progress on all fronts

I haven't had as much time in the workroom as I'd like but I have made progress on all three pieces in the last few days. Like Honey from the Rock has more of its purple added and I rectified a few areas where shadows weren't quite right. I still have a couple more places like that to fix, and a lot more stitching to add.

Like Honey from the Rock 18in x 12in

Rites of Passage is assembled, and I began stitching it today. I'm actually finding this one a bit of a challenge to get just the right colours. I want to brighten the colours, so the scene looks a little alien, but not so much that it stops looking like a real place.

Rites of Passage 6in x 6in

Mistrise has had wadding added and I've started stitching. This one will have a lot less intensive stitching than the other two, and it's quite hard to remember that I'm doing something a lot more like traditional machine quilting and a lot less like embroidery! I don't want to lose the ethereal effect in the clouds, so I don't want to have to stitch them heavily to balance heavy stitching on the hills. The stitching isn't that clear in the photograph - I've only done a little on the nearer hills so far.

Mistrise 18in x 12in

And just in case you thought I'd been slacking...

Here is Like Honey from the Rock. I haven't bothered to update it every day - how boring! But it's gradually getting where I want it to go.

The balance is way too yellow at present, but I still have a lot of purple to stitch.

Susan's Quilt Meme

Susan started this meme over on her blog. What you've done in bold, what you want to do in italic, the rest plain.

Here's mine. I can't believe how many of these things I've actually done!
nine patch

log cabin

curved piecing by hand

curved piecing by machine

hand applique [ needle turned ]

hand applique tacked edges

hand applique with fusible / blanket stitch

reverse applique [ hand or machine ]

Afro-American improvisational style quilt

Tivaevae

machine applique

trapunto

whole cloth

english paper piecing by hand (and I hated it with a passion and am never doing that again!)

american piecing by hand

american piecing by machine

strip or string piecing

kaleidoscope or mandala [ not stack and whack]

stencilled quilt

hand quilting

machine quilting

McTavishing

quilted commercially with a longarm machine

3D folded flowers

made a quilt on commission

sold a quilt other than a commission piece

taught quilting at any level

stack and whack

stack and slash

Anjii's Angles

embellished with embroidery, beads, etc

celtic applique / bias work

Amish style quilt

Cathedral Windows

stained glass quilt [ any method ]

had an original design published

written a quilt book (does editing count?)

scrap quilt

baltimore applique

sampler quilt

japanese design

foundation piecing

crazy patchwork

silk fabrics

cotton fabrics

woollen fabrics

colourwash

row by row

1930s or feedsack fabric

1880s reproduction fabric

tea cosy

item for an animal

hand dyed fabric [ yours or someone else's]

round robin

quilt-as-you-go

non-traditional quilt

traditional quilt

miniature

full sized bed quilt

sashiko

seminole

quillow

bag

patchwork or quilted clothing

pillow

christmas themed, [ quilt, wallhanging, stocking, etc ]

medallion quilt (underway anyway)

raffle quilt [ all or part ]

I-spy

baby quilt

landscape quilt

participated in a group challenge

exhibited a quilt overseas

made a prize winning quilt

Rites of Passage

I didn't get time to stitch today, but I did do some more planning work on the Rites of Passage piece. Like everything else, it's due on 2 Jun. I'd already decided on the image of the fale, to represent our time living in Samoa. It's such an archetypical Polynesian image! But I wanted to do more to represent how living in that country changed me, and why this image is representative of a rite of passage. I played with adding words and adapting the image in various ways, but I wasn't happy with anything I came up with. Finally, I had a brain wave. The Samoan image does not have to be the whole 6in square. Incredible! I had adapted the original 6in x 4in image to a square, but I could use overlays, strips, anything around it. (Sometimes things are so obvious, once you've gone all round the gardens!)

I finally decided I wanted to emphasise the sense of passage, of change, which is what the time in Samoa means to me. Doorways! But what kind of doorway? There are practical difficulties, as most everyday doorways are tall and skinny. I'll need a special sort of doorway, then. I hunted through our photos (and with two photographers in the family, these are not few), until I found this image of an archway in Richmond Castle in England.


I cropped and played with the image in PhotoPaint, to leave me just the archway. I superimposed the result onto my fale image.


I like the juxtaposition of a very European doorway on an island scene, which expresses some of the dissonance I felt living in a third world country, in an alien culture. It's hard to set aside your assumptions, that western worldview, and see what is really happening around you. At the same time, instead of being in the dominant cultural tradition as you are at home, you are the outsider, the palagi. It gave me a huge understanding of what it is like to be the outsider, the migrant, the one who is different, in our own culture.

Like Honey from the Rock

I've done more stitching on this piece today and it's starting to come together. I've added a quite intense purple red, which is starting to bring it more towards the purple end of the spectrum. It's interesting that it still looks so brown! Most of the colours to come are purples, moving towards pink.