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| I hope that we will return to normal or a near normal life. |
I just wanted, no needed to play with fabric, colour, thread in other words be creative. An idea came from a quote I read on the internet it is from Emily Dickinson:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
Usually I start a new project in EQ, this time I played in my graphics program. At first I was just going to do a small trapunto whole cloth with the word hope, but I wasn't really feeling it. The feather kept tickling me. Then it hit me why not use a feather, thankfully not very hard. How?
The ideas flowed after that. But how was I going to add that feather, with thread of course after all the original idea of a whole cloth was still there. I had never done a whole cloth before. There's a first time for everything and I was going to jump in feet first.
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| tracing the lettering and feather using my lightbox |
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| stitched with washout thread |
I layered the backing, Hobbs 80/20 batting, another piece of poly batting and the top.
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| backing, Hobbs batting, poly batting and top |
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| Aurifil thread selection |
I was a little worried about stitching the feather and making a total mess of it. So I started with stitching Aurifil 2024 around all the lettering and the spine of the feather first. I thought micro stitching around the letters would make them pop, it does. BUT it is slow going and I figured after half an hour in I must have been off my rocker to be doing it. It was slow going but I do like the look of it.
That feather was taunting me and I thought it's now or never. For the feather I laid down a base using 2024 followed by 2311. I'm sorry I didn't take any step by step photos, I was too into the feather to even think about photos. I used 2304 and 2902 both 40 wt next.
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| I like how the feather turned out |
Instead of a traditional binding I did a faced binding. This is the tutorial I used. I hand sewed the sides and the bottom corners but left the top corners unsewn, I am using them as hanging pockets.
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| the back |
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| no sun this morning |
Would I do another whole cloth? I think so? Did it help fill my need for creativity? Yes!
I hope you are remaining positive and finding joy in the simple pleasures... maybe it's the smell of fresh bread, a phone call or message from a loved one or friend or maybe a sunny day.
Stay safe and stay healthy!
