Thursday, February 14, 2008

Valentines Day

Here are a few more images of my "slow cloth" work that show the wonderful way that vintage cotton or linen damasks will take dye. This was the last of a piece I called "Tomato Freckles" now in the body of a giant horned newt. Old cotton cut-work doilies are great finds too. I wonder if they take the dye so well because they have been washed so many times or because they were made before the processes that prevent a good dye job? Any notions? The white fabric is lawn cut from an antique Italian wedding trousseau. I wonder when I'll know there's enough stitching on this one. Maybe when I can't lift it anymore. Oh, and by the way, I failed a studio inspection this morning. Voodoo only comes by once in a great while to hurk on something (last time directly into my clever little bobbin holder) and be critical. This morning the criticism was about an empty food dish.

5 comments:

mzjohansen said...

I have a passion for balck cats. Probably was burned at the stake in Salem at some point !
Happy V Day !

Nellie's Needles said...

oh, now I definitely have to get out my collection of old linen doilies and incorporate them in my work. I love how the yellow peeks through the blue dyed cutwork embroidery in your piece.

arlee said...

Had a DUh moment reading this one--a huge Rubbermaid of doilies under the work table that i've been saving---for what???? The dyepot, whoo hoo!!!!!!
That blue snaps against the saffron!

sharonb said...

Yep old linen - hand dyed has a richness of its own - lovely piece

Anonymous said...

Love your blog. Always something interesting. :-)