Sunday, December 16, 2012

Further Confusion


Here we go again. Surprising things can be found in the garden, surprising because they are quite out of season. For example, baby pears
and apples.
And the roses have something say.
Admittedly, I have been craving pink, so this rose pleases me so much in a very green landscape.
Consequently, the roses made it into my sketchbook this week. I sketched with a white colored pencil then machine sewed the design.
Then I pinned fabrics and sewed them down. I added a tile background to the right, very murky.
The dark fabrics add such drama but proved difficult to photograph. 
For a few of the leaves, I found a piece of green lacy cotton in my stash. 
For an exciting Saturday evening, I machine stitched the words free hand for the first time. What an adrenalin rush! The snippets of pink fell into place. 
Now this page has the gaiety of a party, yet the message is sobering. 
Bittersweet.
[More process photos over at MulticoloredSnippetsJust scroll back.]

And wildflowers have begun blooming. 
Fortunately temperatures have dropped and I had to get out my wool coat. 
Maybe things will get back to normal.
Gently, gently, documenting the decline. 
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IMPORTANT UPDATE about Picasa (see previous post for background info): Picasa has just increased size allowances for photos. They went from around 1 G. to 5 G. I had managed to get my photos sized down to take up 40% of the space and then suddenly I had only 9% used up. Wow!


7 comments:

bohemiannie! art said...

The beautifully stitched words didn't seem sad to me. Changing seasons are something that I MISS. SUCH a beautiful work of art.

Susan Lenz said...

Hi!
Love the drama of this piece and the free-motion text. I've done quite a lot of free-motion writing ... and it now completely looks like my own handwritten words, just by machine.

I ran out of free blog space during my first art residency in Maine, autumn 2008. Instead of resizing anything, I decided to pay the $20 per year for the extra storage space. Four years later, I am no where near using up all the storage space this small fee provides. I get a simple reminder email every year ... and pay the $20.

For me, it is worth every penny as I'd probably still be resizing photos! I also pay approximately $20 a year for a Flickr! Pro account which has more space than I'll likely ever use (even though I quickly went over their maximum "free" space). The only other expense for Internet exposure (beyond the cost of the computer and local connections ... which I would be paying whether I blogged or not) is a small annual fee for my website domain. In all, I pay less than $100 per year for maintaining a website and over seven blogs.
Susan

Radka said...

I love what you have done with the rose!

Laura McGrath said...

This rose is just beautiful--what type of thread do you use for the outlining? It seems thicker than the normal 40 or 50 wt I use for piecing/FM stitching. Yesterday when I was leaving work I saw an iris in bloom, and meant to bring my camera today to take a picture, but forgot. It shouldn't be blooming until April!

MulticoloredPieces said...

Thanks, Laura. I just use sewing thread, even on my hand stitching because I have a rather large collection inherited from my mom and I want to use it up. It may appear thicker because I usually go over lines (loosely) several times.

Laura said...

I have lots of regular sewing thread like Coats and Clark that I don't use for free motion because it looks too thick and heavy--duh, thanks for reminding me to use it!!

Anonymous said...

and here we have a Global Warming quilt... all these freaky manifestations, even when welcome (like warm spring-like days in New England in midwinter), are just plain disturbing. At least Obama MENTIONED climate change in his inaugural address!

(PS the writing came out well! it's hard, I know).