Sunday, October 18, 2015

October Stitch-In

Zita hand stitched to emphasize the rectangular shapes in this piece by her friend.

We had a nice turnout for today's Stitch-In...six of us and lots of interesting projects and discussions.

Zita S. made it for her first time and it was so great to see her. She brought along a very special piece to work on. It was an eco-dyed and hand felted piece that her dear friend Sharon J. had made. Sharon passed away unexpectedly at the very end of last year and our guild recently had a trunk show sale of her work to raise money. Zita purchased the box labeled "India Flint" (Sharon took a class with India) and found this piece at the very bottom of the box. Zita says that Sharon was never really "into" hand stitching...so Zita is going to continue to work on the piece...hand stitching it a bit at a time. What an amazing way to feel connected to her friend (reminds me of how connected I feel when I stitch on my Dad's letter).

Zita plans to take her time hand stitching areas of this eco-dyed piece.
Ann Z. brought along Buffalo Boy's head (a sock) to stitch. I had to laugh...she was using a maraca as a darning egg to help stitch through the sock (ingenious!).

Buffalo Boy's head.
Ann also brought this in-process piece. She is trying to decide how to finish the bottom half of the piece.


Cheryl is following up on her Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year's) resolution to complete pieces. She brought in this luscious knitted scarf that she started a while back. It may go to a friend.


Cheryl also brought in a gorgeous silk scarf created by Ellen Hoverkamp using a high resolution scan of vegetables. It reminded all of us of Dutch still life paintings.

Detail of a scarf by Ellen Hoverkamp.

Alice H. brought in one of her shibori pieces to stitch on. She is painstakingly stitching her fabric to resist the dye she'll later paint on it. I just love the texture!


Barbara M-C brought in a number of things to share. She's been working on a series of cloth dolls symbolizing her childhood (she's posted some on Facebook and I believe is now selling some on Etsy). This one was influenced by the traditional Hungarian clothing her grandmother would sometimes wear.


Detail of hand stitched motifs on the dress.

She also brought a cloth and paper book she created using some of her fabrics from the Story Cloth class and handmade papers from her friend's collection.


And here is a piece she's started using some of her indigo dyed fabric. The theme is "day and night".


I was hoping to stitch on my Dad's letter but I'm waiting for a skein of hand-dyed thread to arrive (probably tomorrow). In the meantime, I started setting up a new piece about my Dad...a great story that my brother told me. I spent some time on Friday going through a folder of family photos and reading through stories my siblings shared with me about Dad. I think that there is really a wealth of inspiration and I'm looking forward to working on a number of pieces about family.

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