not that much to update on

Still trudging away at bigger projects, but between the field trip this week, working on the senior show website, and finishing my 12" by 12" piece, not that much progress was made.

The 12" by 12", finished except for the wooden 'neck' that it'll eventually sit on. After losing the original 'tie' for it (which you can see unfinished in a few other pictures) I was forced to madly complete this one, which is a crochet mesh (the basis for filet crochet)It looks okay, but I'm not used to crochet, and my wrist is still hurting me.


Continuing with the quilted cape.


The class had a workshop on indigo batik, and I'm in charge of making up the samples into a quilt to be raffled off. Now if only people would get the rest of the fabric to me!



Picked up this rather mangy fur coat of unknown animal, I'm slowly taking it apart, but I have to be very carefully, the leather is very brittle.

The inside was a mess of basting stitches and dust.

Some of the chunks as I take them apart.

On a Photo-Roll

Not much to say here I haven't said before, but here's some new, somewhat better shots of the entire Leoh piece.












This last one is pretty much what my postcard/exhibition catalog picture is going to be, just much better shot!

Cloak Progress

Cloak Status: Lining is dyed, and quilting has begun!

After helping many many high school students to dip-dye their kimono in Saturday school, my fear of ombre went away, and I began to see it's allure. And it stuck in my head, until I found a place for it in the lining of this cloak.

Unfortunately, actually doing it, I was reminded of why exactly I was afraid of it. I ended up dying it twice to get a peach I liked, and dip-dying it twice to get a deeper pink on the ends. I honestly wanted it to fade to a more raspberry color, but cotton flannel doesn't take dye very strongly.





And a much better picture of the outer 'lone star' patchwork.


With the first lining piece tacked in:

I'm not joining them before quilting them if only because everything is slightly irregular, and it'll be easier to adjust them this way.


And as it sits on the manny. I'm not going to "fill in" the points, I've decided, but will be making a knit "under cloak" that will fill it in, I think it'll add another good layer, and gives me a good reason for a knit collar. The under cloak will probably button in and be removable. I've started it, but it looks like very little at the moment.

Photo Practice

As you may have noticed from reading this blog, I am completely awful at taking photographs. This comes from a long tradition of only owning outdated, shitty cameras, and never really having an interest in photography growing up. As a result, I'm terrified of good camera and, as much as I attempt to learn what the settings do, still end up futzing with everything until I completely screwed up and have to start over.

Anyway, this week's futzing with one of the photo departments E500's. They look far and above anything I've taken so far, so I'm happy.






And my homework, working with my own camera (Powershot 570) I was working with the natural light in my studio, and I think it may have been a little bright.














They may not be particularly good, but they're better than most of my pictures, that's for sure.

The final documentation for my work I think is going to take the form of something like Aitor Throup's website.

End in Sight?

Getting there with Lireinne. Neckpiece is mostly done, and the cloak is pieced together. Senior show is sneaking up in the most terrible way, giving me some awful anxiety, but I'll unload about that some other time.


Embroidery on the neck piece is done, now I'm just working on the white "scarf" that runs through it, probably will do some cut work on that, make it lacy.

You can see the scarf/tie better here.

And a whole shot, legs and all! The black skirt will probably have some openwork on it at some point.

And some frighteningly bad shots of the cloak. For some reason, even though it's lit just fine, the crit space takes terrible photos at night.


It's basically a lone star quilt pattern, but with two diamonds omitted to make it less than a full circle, and a hole in the middle as a neck hole.

Front

Back

I'm not sure right now if I'm going to leave them as points, or fill in the spaces with more fabric to make a more round shape. Or possibly make another layer underneath this one. Thoughts?