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My original idea was to use old linens for this piece, but as I wrote in my last post I ran out of time to work with those ideas. I liked the idea of recycling things and so I started thinking about what I could use. One of the assessment pieces for my C&G course seemed to be a good starting point. It was my piece for bias strip appliqué. I had always intended to finish it off at some point.
The photos that my DH had found for me were images that reflected the changes that happen to our bodies as we get older. The background fabric on my bias strip appliqué piece reminded me of neurons. Both DH and I have experienced “senior moments” just recently. And so I ended up thinking about how we start to lose our mental faculties. We have also had the unfortunate experience in our families of watching parents lose contact with the world through dementia.
A bit of googling for dementia images turned up this wonderful sketch, which was the final inspiration for my piece that I am calling “Unravelling”. It seems to me that this is what happens to us as we get older. In our brains the neuronal connections start unravelling.
I had another senior moment when quilting this piece – it was only when it was completely finished that I realised I had forgotten to lower the feed dogs on the machine. I had remembered to put on the darning foot though!
 Unravelling, 23cm x 30 cm, hand dyed cotton fabric, cotton thread The bias strips and the cotton thread are both actually dark purple – they look more like black in the photo. The only change I made to the original piece was to lower the eye to its more natural position to allow room for the brain.
Hi everyone
I got as far as taking lots of source material photos for this month’s challenge. However, had a bit of minor surgery and it was much more disruptive than I expected so havent done any stitich apart from an unrealated cross stitch sample that could be done in little chunks and was soothing rather than challenging.
Looking forward to seeing everyone else’s posts
Lois
I’ve been pre-occupied with my final assessment piece for my C&G. I finished it at Easter, which didn’t leave me with much time to produce something for our current challenge. I’ve not been completely idle though. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.
My first idea was to make something with my stash of old linens and embroidered pieces that have come from the family. My mother had a big stash of linens that she couldn’t bring herself to part with. Some of them came originally from my grandma. I thought maybe I could make something using all old fabric. As some of it came from my grandma I started researching Victorian clothing, with a view to turning pillowcases into an article of clothing. Among other things I toyed with a corset. I was always fascinated as a kid by my grandma’s corset!
That was before I got the bit between my teeth with my C&G piece. I didn’t think I had time to do the subject justice. At the same time my DH was also researching for me and showed me some images with his ideas for age. I didn’t use the ideas directly, but they did get me thinking in a different direction.
That’s all I’m going to say for now. More about my final choice when we publish on May 1st. Until then here’s a little teaser to get you thinking.
Apparently I’m the lucky one who gets to choose the next theme – this is actually harder than I thought, but how about age? I thought this could apply to so many things, people, landscape, objects, the actual materials we use, growth, experience, memories, souvenirs, decay, birth etc.
What do we think?
 I started out with a lot of leftover-fabrics from costumes I sewed years ago for my brother, friends and myself. Evenso I am not a lover of glizzy stuff, carnival is different!! It cannot get shiny and glizzy enough!
There are lots of confetti all over the piece. Watching a carnival parade usually means I get lots of confetti thrown at. I always take some home, as hard as I try to get rid of them befor entering the house. It is mess each time. The last confetties I usually find in my car tyre covers when I change tyres in spring!
The hole in the quilt stands for the hole in ones pockets after an extended carnival season! All the partying can get rather expensive.
Last but not least we love to decorate with paper streamers (hope I got the right translation)!
 
Mine are done three dimensional with yarn or/and fabric covered wire!
Though my plans have changed several times for the piece, from masks and feathers to a potato out paper-machée and jute (of which the original gets burned at the end of carnival in my homevillage) and time was running out… – I enjoyed going through all those fabrics with memories for each of them and creating a new piece and memories, too.
Lots of colour and laughter – but also lost children, picked- pockets, swindled customers and tummy aches and hangovers.
My carnival piece looks at the traditional fortune-teller. You see the woman with a long skirt and bandana looking at the hand of the client, who is holding a crystal ball. She is seated at a crimson clothed table inside a tent. Attached to her ear is a phone wire that leads to the other side of the picture. Here there are two men is striped shirts and grey trousers, sitting at a bank of computers. They are using the data coming through from the crystal ball, which is a fingerprint reader, to access information about banking, health risks etc to enable the fortune teller to give accurate information about current events and so seem to be able to tell the future.
This piece is made from fabric and found objects.
in Italian or Harlequin in English, that’s the title of my piece for our carnival theme. I settled on Carnival in Venice quite quickly, perhaps because I’ve always wanted to see it. I originally intended to make a mask. Masks feature a lot in carnival and of course they are an essential part of Carnival in Venice. I have also made a mask before and quite fancied the idea of making another one.
But then life got in the way and I admit to doubting that our Use Your Eyes venture was ever going to take off, so I put off starting and then the time was no longer there. Making a mask from scratch, as I had intended, is a long process. So I made a small quilt instead. I didn’t really stretch myself here, but it was fun to make. Made a change from working on my C&G coursework.
 Arlecchino, 12 inches square, cotton satin, feathers, sequins, metallic thread Making the background fabric allowed me to do some piecing with diamonds. I learnt how to cut diamonds from this website. There are so many useful resources out on the web. It’s actually quite easy when you know how.
I made one silly mistake, but decided not to unpick and change things. This piece was going to be a fun quick start for me, so I decided mistakes were allowed. Perfection is for another time. I should have sewn the feathers down under the edge of the mask, but forgot about them until it was too late. So they are sewn on top instead.
 Arlecchino, detail Some of the Venetian masks are quite heavily decorated, but the Harlequin has a plain black mask. I allowed myself a small amount of artistic license and added the feathers, a few sequins (which are quite hard to see in the photos) and an outline using metallic thread.
So there you have it!
Not sure if my last post made it to the site but I’ve been looking at the darker side of carnival, the idea being able to do bad and mad things under cover of night-time and disguise. I’m also still working on my bird and women theme, and am presently looking at harpies (dreadfully misunderstood!), so the carnival piece has come out rather dark and odd. I’ve enjoyed using all the different materials – wire, organdie, gold leaf, velvet and wood. I suppose the final thing is reminiscent of a wing, or a discarded bit of costume, a trophy of a rare exotic species. It measures roughly 30 x 12cm. Enjoy!
 'Dark Carnival' (30x12cm) wood, velvet, gold leaf, organdie, hair, wire
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 'dark Carnival' (30x12cm), wood, velvet, gold leaf, organdie, hair, wire
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I gave myself a shove and pulled out some fabrics to start on my carnival challenge piece. My calendar is looking pretty busy so I’m only making a fairly small piece. I’m treating this challenge as a chance to try out one or two things and to practise a few others. I’m not telling you any more now though.
Here’s a preview of the fabrics I’ve selected to work with. They are all actually satin bedding fabric. I bought a “surprise” package on ebay of bedding offcuts. There were some surprisingly nice fabrics among them. I did request that I didn’t get any animals or children’s bedding and they were good about fulfilling those requests.
 hand dyed silk chiffon and acetate and pin  Stitch, fine silver and button on charity shop pin-stripe suit Hi Folks,
I am trying this out to see how it works. I haven’t done any sewing for ages except mending sheets and other non-glamourous activities due to other time-specific duties over Christmas. I have a couple of projects I am itching to get on with, one about the way people behave in art galleries and the other based on the tokens left with babies when they were given to the Foundling Hospital in London in the 19th century.
I did a series of rather gruesome embroideries last year which incorporated medical imagery. I’ll have a go at uploading some. Sorry they aren’t in the right part of the text, but here are two images from the series. I’ll have to work on my blogging capacity as well as my stitching.
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Ruth | Category: