I've been feeling the urge to sew things recently. I've no idea why, I just wanted to. I've been looking through my Shelley Rhodes books for inspiration for making bundles and then I looked back through some older sketchbooks and found lots of ideas that haven't been fully realised at all. Interestingly there were things in grids and strips torn and stitched in rows in there which was what I'd been thinking about as a result of looking at the rows and grids in the forest. Funny how sometimes ideas have seeped in without really knowing where from!
I have lots of scraps of monoprints made using grasses and ferns etc but which aren't good enough to stand alone, there are mistakes and missed areas etc in them so they're ripe for recycling.
I ripped some into strips and stitched them:
I liked the delicateness of this, the different weights of papered colours of thread. I chose some larger prints and laid them out to test them. I spent ages testing and reorganising, eventually deciding to use prints that were all the same size and glue them rather than stitch them and make out look like one piece:
I carefully selected the end pieces to use the natural deckle of the paper. I particularly like the upside down fern with the green strip in the middle. I think this really adds to the fragmented feel of this. I think floated in a box frame this could look really lovely. I'm still pondering over a name of it. I was intending to hold it together with glue then stitch it but I don't think it needs the stitch, I really like it just as it is. I'm wondering whether to call it someone vaguely explanatory or totally abstract.... more though needed.
I decided to end the day with one more stitched piece:
This was made with smaller fragments than the previous one. I purposely wanted it to be a little wonky and have rough edges. I like the threads at either ended where some of what's behind peeks out at the top and bottom giving a clue to how it's made. most of the lines are pretty straight but there's the odd bend here and there. I didn't stitch this onto anything and I thing maybe I should, I could be freer with the stitching if its not holding two pieces together - there could be more gaps and space in-between pieces if they don't always have to meet.
I want to do some further experiments putting the stitches across the tear direction and maybe creating a patchwork effect. This feels like t echoing the lines in the forest which I like, but is also thinking about monoculture and diversity within the planting schemes and wondering what grows without any encouragement.