Friday, February 5, 2010

Some progress

After several attempts, I have finally added my header picture...that is the running horse above.  Perhaps there is a way to have the title letters below the picture, but so far that process eludes me.

That little cloth is about 5" high by 9.5" long. Today I embroidered the bee on.  The almond growers in the Central Valley of California are having difficulties with bees too ill to pollinate, so this little bee is a prayer for help for our bee colonies.  


The orangey-pink fabric in the background is a linen that I dyed with onion skins from Trader Joe's.  It was a bag of multi-colored pearl onions.  I read about the process and that citric acid would help to set the color, but I didn't have citric acid, so I added the peel from a clementine and boiled it all together.  It made a beautiful color, but this is not a sturdy cloth, even though I stitched everything securely.   I felt commited  and went ahead with the project anyway but I doubt it would withstand a trip through the washing machine.  Also, I painted starch on the horse so that I could applique him more easily to the background; this helped. After the initial applique, but before the couching, I soaked the background plus horse in warm water to take out the starch because I read that silverfish like starch.  As you can see this is all very experimental.

Lastly, here is Agnes, my dog who is the size of a large cat.  She is a little skeptical about all this experimenting but is supportive for the most part.

6 comments:

  1. Oh Suzanna, I love your little dog, Agnes.I think she is so cute. I have a small dog too, her name is Xava.
    Your new head picture is lovely, I love your way of working with very delicate fabric. Thanks about telling the starch and silverfish, I didn't know that. I'm living in the Netherlands, and we are also having trouble with the bee population. Where would we be without the bees? I do hope so that this problem will be solved.

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  2. Thank you Sandra...I'm doing all these experiments hoping to start a bigger project soon. I love the purple cloth you made with the cabbage!

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  3. Your header is lovely. I just read the book Windhorse Woman and in the story she talks about a white horse that she carved as a gift. Agnes is adorable and you have a lovely blog.

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  4. Thank you ancientcloth...I'm going to look for that book; it sounds good.

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  5. Hi Suzanna--
    welcome tot the blogging world!
    carolyn

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  6. Thanks Carolyn...it's a little daunting but fun.

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