Thready

Here's what Color Thready II looks like as of this morning. I'm now using a greater range of colors than what I was limited to in Florida.

I've been asked about how I make threadies. First let me show you were I got the idea. I have the great book Celebrating the Stitch by Barbara Lee Smith. It's marvelous and has all kinds of textiles including quilts. (There are used copies available at low prices - go get one. This book is loaded with inspiration.)

Anyway, Dana Romalo Andrews is one of the artists featured in the book. She makes free form embroideries that are wondrous little creations just covered with woven stitches. Look at how dense this 11" x 9" piece is:

And this is the front and back side of another piece:

Aren't they incredible? I love them. She starts by couching down leftover bits of fiber onto a cloth. She works both the front and back sides until the whole piece is entirely covered. If you want to know more buy the book or borrow it from the library. [Libraries will get the book for you if they don't have it on their shelves - interlibrary loan is a great tool.]

My works aren't nearly that elaborate. I sometimes couch, but not recently. I usually start with a small bit of muslin and make running stitches with embroidery floss. It can be as basic as that. Sometimes I use yarns, rayons, and metallic threads. Sometimes I throw in some french knots. I've been known to get more elaborate with beads. Whatever I'm in the mood for.

On both the Color Threadies I've basted some colored bits of fabric onto the muslin before I started with the embroidery floss. That way I don't have to cover every single bit of the base fabric with a stitch - the batiks show through in beautiful color. But previously I was covering every bit of the base fabric. I stick to running stitch and then stab stitches in random spots that need covering - no weaving like Ms Andrews does.

Anyway, that's the basic idea behind a thready. Stitch, stitch, stitch. If you want to try this yourself I highly recommend that you use a lightweight fabric for your base - it gets very hard to stitch through towards the end. Don't fuse (again too hard to stitch through). Don't make knots (ditto). I just do a backstitchy kind of thing to anchor my beginning and at the end I run my needle through previous stitches on the underside.

Initially I just hung these creations on the wall as is, but after someone said they looked like the world's most expensive pot holders I realized I'd better make them look more like art.

The blue vases aren't pottery. They're carved out of alabaster - a rock. The shopkeeper in Egypt told me that this was a special kind of blue onyx, but it's not. The vases are all dyed - I know it for a fact since I was cleaning one of my final purchases with a damp cloth and ended up with a clump of blue dye. I didn't see much dyed alabaster when I initially arrived in Egypt but by the time I left it was available in all sorts of colors including lime green and orange.

A close up of the modern phrenology head for Kathie. I hope you can see some of the words on here: aliens, coffee, playground trauma, evil, good, email password...

I actually cleaned bathrooms today. Bleck, but at least it's out of the way. I'm still disorganized, but no longer worrying about it. It was gray and rainy this morning, but now the sun is out. I'm going to go work on my thready and find a dvd to watch.

p.s. I should have said that the Harry Potter HARDBACKS are my husband's. I'm cheap enough that I'd have continued to wait until the books came out in paperback, but there was no way my sweetie was going to wait to read the books. He didn't start reading them until the movie came out so I had to go back and replace the first couple of paperbacks with hardbacks so that he'd have a matching set. Did that make sense?

Threadies

I'm trying to decide if Color Thready II is finished or not. Usually I don't quit putting in stitches until all of the background is covered. I don't want to do that here because I like the batiks showing through. I'm pinning it up on my board and looking at it for awhile. What do you guys think? Does it look complete? Any area bother you? By the way, it's all ripply now but when I give it a quick bath and then block it out it will be flat.

Decided to start on another thready project, something mindless to do while watching tv. The base is a horrible black calico print from the mid 1980's. I used it in my Masterpiece Quilt and it has already faded to brown. It's never being used in a quilt top again, tho it works fine for this or quilt backing. The initial size of the fabric was 6.25" x 6.75"

I started by couching yarn on it and now I'm doing running stitches with embroidery floss and rayon floss.

Definitely a bummer year for the Tour de France with all the doping problems. Miserable, although Discovery Channel now has two riders for a podium finish if they maintain their places.

I've got a friend coming into town for a week and another just for the weekend - I hope Paris isn't too crazy with people for the end of the Tour on Sunday. I've noticed that restaurants and shops in my area are already closing for their summer holidays. Just closing your store for 6 weeks - I find that hard to fathom. Nice lifestyle though.

Fabric Stores in Monmartre

Looking for fabric in Paris? There are plenty in Montmartre. Get off the metro at the Anvers stop, walk towards the Sacre Couer Basilica and then west towards the Halle St-Pierre (where the naive art museum is - highly recommended) and you will come across many of them. I didn't take very many pics, sorry.

This is the silk that I bought at Tissus Moline at 1, Place Saint Pierre and at a shop a couple doors down. I really needed some lighter shades of blue and the bluish green (second from right) is absolutely gorgeous.

The silks, which were on sale, were less than the astronomically priced cottons (mixed up, crazy world but fortunate for me since I'm in a silk mood). Sales in France only occur in January and July and are called the Soldes.

The next two pics reminded me of Cairo: belly dancer scarves and costumes:

I'm still headachy from allergies and doing my best to not constantly whine about it. As a result I'm staying away from cutting fabric (which releases something up in the air that makes me nuts). I picked up a crusty that I'd abandoned a couple of years ago when I couldn't decide whether or not to expand the color selection to include orange? Habibi should actually be orange but I'd wimped out using it. I told you I used to be very strict about what colors I'd use in my artwork. I was battling myself with this piece.

Habibi's eyes are orange as well so yesterday I embroidered his eyes and cut out a new moon.

I'm thinking what's really not working is the bottom bit with the kitties. I went too dull with the colors. Maybe I should just work on the pyramid section to my satisfaction and then see. When I drew my cats' faces, the girls were probably about 6 months old. Lily had a very sharp, triangular foxy face and Pokey's was a diamond shape with puffy cheeks.

Long time readers may think this looks familiar. It's similar in design to my crusty Queen of the Nile and to my Purple Cat on the Nile embroidery. Since that embroidery was a gift, I had started remaking the purple cat for myself way back when and I may just dig that back out. Meanwhile I've started back to work on my Color Thready II.

I'm very slowly rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I don't remember much from this one or the next. Our copy of the latest book just went in the mail, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to get here.