Digitally Altered & Stitched

Two weeks ago I did a post about a photo I took and processed three ways (you can see it here).  I really liked the third version, so I printed it onto this woven fabric (you can read about that here), and then I started to add stitch and beads.  The colours are off in this first shot because of the light and time of night when I took it, but it shows the beginnings of the stitching and beading.  I let the print lead me and just kept adding to it until it felt like it didn't need anything more. 

 I used some DMC floss and some hand-dyed threads for both the embroidery stitches and the hand wrapped cords that I made.  I decided to create some more dimensionality by attaching the cording in such a way that it lifted up off of the surface.

It looks a lot different than the photo, but it was a fun little piece to work on.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

My fibre arts group's latest challenge was to incorporate some small rock pieces that Ann brought back with her from Arizona.   In addition to using the rocks in the piece, we had to include the word 'rock' in the title.  What immediately came to mind for me was the old game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.  Here's the resulting piece.

I first created the background by using my embellisher and adding various scraps of rovings, hand dyed cheese cloth, organza, silk scarves, etc. to a piece of felt.  I then wrapped the rocks with copper wire embellished with beads.  The large beads are made of various decorative papers and strips of newspaper and some were also wrapped with copper wire.  The scissors are were thread sketched onto the background.  The piece was finished off with hand wrapped cords, hand embroidery and beading.  The final touch was to get out in my kayak and find a piece of driftwood to attach for hanging.  I had a lot of fun creating this piece!