Stitching the gloves on

This is a bit of a boring job, but it does look nice. Better than if I had been able to use a machine stitch, which was my original intention. I couldn't do that, because the foot doesn't move freely over the kid leather. I believe it needs a roller foot, which I don't have and don't want to buy.

What I do like is whipping another yarn through the stitches so, even before I finished the stitching, I am experimenting.

This is a relative fine thread that can be used with an embroidery needle.

This yarn is much thicker and I had to use a big needle with a very big eye.
It hides the original red stitching a bit more, it is marginally harder to use.
What does show well on these photos is that the kid leather is very fine and I am conscious that it really IS skin as I push the needle through.
I think I will be going with the finer thread.
I bought the yarns, threads and some fascinating fabrics at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane last Friday.
Threads and yarns from The Thread Studio and fabric from  Beautiful Silks.

Also bought a "Studios" Magazine.  Our house is for sale which means that, eventually, we will move into another house and I have an opportunity to redesign my sewing studio. I like the one I have, because although it is only small, we had the house built to our specs, so I have been very happy with my sewing studio, which, in fact, I have always called my sewing "room". As we very likely will move into an existing home, I will have to work with what I get!

Background

This is the background, in other words: 3 layers with stitching.

Here is a close up.

I used part of Windmills of your mind to see if I could staple a quilt to stretcher frames, to get away from what I felt was an unpleasant way a quilt with various amount of density in the quilting, will hang.

You can't appreciate it here, but it is very effective and I have bought 26" stretched bars for this new work.

Creating background

The quilt sandwich is made and is approx. 32" square.
Layers: Iron on interfacing on the bottom fused to bamboo wadding fused with paper backed fusible to the Dupion Silk.
I made templates of the outline of my hand in 3 sizes. (resized in CorelDraw).
25 Hand outlines are drawn on the back of the quilt sandwich, which is the interfacing.

I went through my threads and yarns and selected 2: an orangy hand spun silk thread, given to me many years ago by an 80 year old lady called Norma, a variegated jeans topstitching thread.
I made a test quilt the same as the main quilt and tried them out.

I liked the orange thread the best, with it slightly lumpy texture.

Deconstruction 1 and 2

What if....
I opened up one glove, so I could applique it and see both sides at once?

This is what it looks like. Because you can't see the thumb, you can't appreciate how unpleasantly organic this object looks!


Next: just cut each glove in half, so I have 2 outside and 2 inside pieces.

OK, this was an experiment and I was very much prepared to sacrifice this pair.
I don't have to sacrifice the 4 pieces, but I learned NOT TO USE STEAM ON KID LEATHER!
It makes it shrink like plastic would.

Next step:
I have a piece of gorgeous magenta Dupion Silk for the background. Thought I could tuck it, but tucking needs more fabric than I have.

Gloves, gloves....

I bid on 13 pairs of ladies gloves on ebay and I got them today. They are just gorgeous: most are soft, kid leather, short ones, long ones, some are fabric, most are cream, one black, one brown, one midnight blue...or is that black?
Now I have to decide what to do with them. Of course, they don't all have to go into the next artwork...


Initially, my plan was to stitch some gloves onto a background quilt and then embellish them. I don't want a big quilt....

I am stuck at the moment....

Don't know about this one....

This actually looks better on the photo than it does in real life.
I used some paints and some crayons.

If I analyse this, I like the design, I don't like the execution, it is a bit too sloppy for me....

"Hand-in-hand"

This is the theme for the next exhibition of our art group to coincide to the multicultural festival end July.
What I would really, really love to do is create a chain of paper dolls into a Mobius strip that way, either 3D or drawing, but I don't have the technical skills to do either....If you don't know what a Mobius strip is, search images in google.

What I do have is the ability to make a paper doll chain and a quilt I do not want to keep as it is.

I have paints, mediums, a brayer, which is a hard roller to roll paint for block printing, but I am considering using the brayer to roll paint lightly over the quilt, covering to top layer, but leaving the deeper, stitched lines.

I can use the paper doll chains as stencils.....