week 28--fancy

Yowza. Almost seven weeks behind. It was a busy summer, part (most) of which was spent cleaning out my mother's house. I really didn't know what to do with this word, but having found so many monogrammed linen napkins there I pondered cutting and embellishing one, "F is for fancy". But instead I found in my stash a black faux silk and some fancy, antique buttons--rhinestones, marcasite, mother-of-pearl, millefiore, and such. I'd always wanted to try the ruffler attachment that came with my Singer Featherweight so used that to ruffle the black ribbon for the edges. The rhinestone trim was leftover (read: untouched) from another unfinished (read: unstarted) project.
I'm so looking forward to pulling a new word--and having a little more time to work on it!

week 27--tree

So I'd thought of doing a family tree; I have been cleaning out my mom's house and finding boxes upon boxes of photographs. (Who are these people?!?) Then I considered doing the classic 'Tree of Life', a design I've always liked. But I'd found a piece of organdy (or is it organza? I could never remember the difference) and wanted to use its sheerness in some way. After attempting a few different ideas (felting, cutouts), I decided to simply draw a tree on it then layer it over another fabric to subtly show through. I had some Czech glass leaf-shaped beads so sewed them on. They're not quite to scale with the presumed size of the tree, but that's okay. The tree reminds me of the London Planes in the neighborhood, what we've called "bumpy trees" since Joe was a little guy. (They're a hybrid of Sycamore and something else, developed for London because the heavy pollutants in the air--London fog was actually London smog--wouldn't affect the trees as much with their contantly peeling bark. So they became popular as a city landscaping tree. There's your science/history lesson for the day.)

Pigma pen on organdy (I just looked it up--'dy is cotton or nylon, 'za is silk, poly, or rayon; what an education today!) over cotton batik. Decorative cording machine-stitched around edges, hand-beaded.

week 26--music

Wow, am I far behind with this project. Ah, well, I allowed for it to happen.
I figured I'd use the music-print fabric from my stash for this one, but didn't know what else to do. While cleaning out my mom's house I came across some old holiday tree decorations. Our tree always had lots of musical instrument ornaments, and I remember this verrry fragile, glass trumpet; it actually worked way back when, though it probably sounded a bit more like a kazoo. The mouthpiece is gone now; I glued a bead-cap on the end to replicate it (and cover the really sharp edge).

Cotton fabrics, decorative yarn, glass ornament stitched down with clear thread.