Having a well-earned beer after putting together a cape and 100 handmade flowers. The exhibition was amazing - there are some seriously talented people out there and I really hope those of you who participated keep at it (those of you who aren't pros already, that is). I almost felt embarrassed with my offering, which is much more functional than artistic. Indeed, I was surprised by the emphasis on art over functionality and a discussion ensued in our household as to why this is the case. Do people not make stuff any more? Have we divorced art from the functional and left art to elites? I have no idea.
The exhibition and an interview with Emma were on the news (here, at 23.50). The fabulous cape had its 0.5 seconds of fame (early in the item). A HUGE thank you to Emma for organising it all. Now that I see how much goes into it, If I do it again next year I'll offer to volunteer (I can hand out beer and orange juice as well as anyone).
I featured a number of other artists during the duration of the project and it was fabulous to see so many of them in the flesh. The website is good but there's nothing like seeing people's work up close. To everyone who finished, congratulations and maybe we'll see you next year (if there is a next year). And till then, au revoir.
Well one plus the one I fatally wounded tonight by cutting accidentally.
A process proving to be more painful and time-consuming than making the wretched things.
I don't have anything else to add today. So I won't.
Running late tonight because we had to take this guy to the vet. Who couldn't find anything wrong but charged a bunch anyway.
Here's our beautiful quince tree in full spring blossom. Poor thing got transplanted during the drought a couple of years ago and sulked thereafter. But this year there's been some rain and it's looking much happier with the world. Quince jelly...mmmmmmmm.
The day I have been dreading - buttonhole day. I had it all planned, though: I was going to do those funky keyhole buttonholes that I can now do with my fancy embroidery machine.
Except...that the buttons required a 4cm buttonhole and the maximum size the machine is capable of is 28mm. So onto Plan B: do them on the straight sewer. Except...the buttonhole foot for this machine is even smaller.
So this necessitated a rethink and I ended up doing them on the old machine, without the buttonhole foot to guide the fabric. In a lame attempt to add some zing - any zing would do - I used some Goliath thread as a gimp thread to give the buttonhole a bit of a lift.
So it ended up being a hand-guided buttonhole while trying to work a double layer of heavy fabric and making sure the narrow buttonhole stitch went over the Goliath thread. Plus I have a history of stuffing up buttonholes. What could go wrong? Quite a lot but in this case it didn't.
Now all that remains is sewing on another 95 flowers and hemming the whole shebang up so no one can see the mistakes!
Started stitching the flowers on. The blue ones to start with because there's fewer of them and I have some cool sparkley things I can use. The flowers are just anchored down with a few beads but with 100 flowers that's still quite a bit of additional weight (and the thing already weighs a bunch).
Here's the flowers pinned on. There's a couple of minor details like the buttons and buttonholes to do but after that it's chocs away! It looks better in real life than the photo, I'm happy to report.
