Wednesday, May 30, 2018

This is just a test ... eeeeeeeeeeee

I hesitated to use Grace's trademark "eeeeeeeee" but it was just too perfect for how things have progressed to this first test page for Moon Myth ...


There are many editorial tweaks to come on text, format, margins, font, etc etc etc ... but it has already come a long way. And it is here that I must acknowledge the incredible wealth of knowledge I have gained from my recent revisiting of Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth classes. Time to send another donation in appreciation of her incredible teaching.

To recap how I got to this test page, I took my cloudy patches from this post
after agonizing about which Deb Lacativa threads to  use, which was pointless worry as any of her threads would have worked. From there I decided to use her thread magic on my base cloth seams, seen best here ...


The stitches are like an endlessly fascinating string of jewels popping into view, turning an otherwise repetitive task into true patchplay.

I had originally trialed an intricately paperless patched base for each page of Moon Myth ...


but it was too fussy and felt "tight" somehow. So a consult with my fellow artist in residence led to stitching the patches onto a simpler base ...


which also felt a bit "tight" until I watched one of the Spirit Cloth videos on managing layers and realized there was a simple solution to be found in cutting through the back of the base thus easing the patches into it ...


Then I basted some harem cloth on to anchor the base seams and provide a friendly ground for future stitching ...


because my ultimate goal is to create a cloth for each page of the book ...


then scan each cloth ...


and superimpose text using Word. From there I'll be able to make "camera ready" PDF pages and print multiple copies of the book.

But then I'll have all these (hopefully) beautiful little cloths with large blank spaces. Hand stitching all the text into those spaces isn't realistic, so the plan is to stitch selected words from the text on to each cloth page and then join all the cloths together into a large story cloth.

At least that's the plan for now. 

Stay tuned ...