Monday, April 24, 2017

Stitch a day sometimes

In 2015 or maybe even 2016, I decided to try this idea of stitching on a dedicated piece every day.


I also had the notion that I would restrict each season to a small colour palette. You can tell by the opening sentence I didn't have a lot of stick-to-it-ness. I was thoroughly bored in weeks. I changed the rule to stitching once a week. I tidied everything up, put it in a nice basket so I could get it out once a week, and forgot about it.


Months later I showed it to my gang of textile artist friends and there was strong suggestions that I finish it. Don't look a successful artist's advice in the mouth. Do as one is told to do. I finished it.


It's not so bad. Some parts are even good. As the eye journeys left to right, the first section of dark reds, golds and green are the palette for winter.


Then the colours overlap a bit for winter and spring.


They overlap once more for summer. I was going to swing up overhead and do fall as a kind of sky, but really, I had had enough. And the piece had too. It looked finished to me. Not just because I wanted it to be over, but because there weren't any more colours that were calling out to me, there didn't seem to be anymore stitch combinations that wanted stitching,


I felt I had explored all there was. Once I decided on how to treat the top edge, by having an uneven hem on the front side, it really did feel complete to me. The hem is the detail that pulled the work together for me and now I like it a whole lot more. I really don't mind an open ended stitching project, but the limited colour palette and the 'do something everyday' parts weren't up my alley. I like a lot of colour and to stitch as much as I want to. I can see exploring this again, but with slightly different rules. In 2018 or 19 or 20.

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