Today begins the journey of the artist residency I mentioned in the last post. I will be doing mostly hand stitched or slow stitched projects but may use my sewing machine to assemble items. I’m being a little vague on purpose. I have an idea but I have to try it out and fail and regroup and try again. That’s why I titled this post “A Journey” because I think art is about the process. Learning and gathering information and skills now to take onto the next journey or expedition you find yourself on. I also think it’s building on what you’ve learned in the past and challenging your own thoughts and ideas to create a better understanding of the work, yourself, the world around you.

I’m trying to do some stitching everyday. Today, while laid up with back issues and not able to move around very much, I stitched these two panels. They will become a small drawstring pouch but I didn’t get to the machine sewing part of the project. It was nice to sit and slow stitch on something, to process, and infuse the end product with well wishes for the recipient.

The image on the left is the front of the pouch and the one on the right is the back.

My goals with the artist residency are to work on my composition, color selection, and create a stitch vocabulary. Today is my first day of stitching so I stuck with running stitch or something similar to Japanese boro stitching. I did add little French knots around the yo-yo to make it stand out a little bit. I used the hibiscus tea dyed Sashiko thread and it lost most of it’s color in the rinse and vinegar soak. It’s not white but more of a light cream/beige/pink color.

This pouch will have a rounded bottom so I tried to keep any design out of the bottom third of the panel so I don’t lose part of the design. Some of the stitching will be lost but that’s to be expected from the fabric shrinking a bit when it’s stitched on. I used batting as the stabilizer and I do like the look of it.

Happy Stitching!

Camille