El Grande Worry

This piece all started with a commercial that I thought was very funny...

I was so excited about making this piece that I was up in my studio painting at 5:30am so that the paint would be dry when I had more time. I started with painting a plain white Tyvek envelope, using gold, brown, rustic red and emerald green, Lumiere paints.

Then I painted a left over piece of cotton batting, brown and gold, as a back drop for the Tyvek. I cut the Tyvek into random pieces that I found pleasing and pinned them to the brown and gold back drop.

Then I got really nervous because I'd never done this before. So I thought that I would practice on a piece of Tyvek that I had in my scrap pile. I pinned it to a scrap piece of cotton batting and put some tear away on the back to give it some stability and also to give my hands more room to hold it while sewing.

Then I started stitching using a Sulky embroidery thread for the top and a neutral cotton thread in the bobbin.

Because my sewing machine automatically sets the tension depending on the thickness of the piece under the needle...I had to use a stiletto that my husband had just made me. This helped me keep my hands away from the needle and also help feed the Tyvek through the machine. I really liked the results so now I was ready to start on my original back drop.

Again, using the stiletto as a guiding tool, I stitched until I was happy with the integration of the Tyvek to the painted cotton batting.

Then I stitched the backdrop to a burlap rice sack using jute from the dollar store. Painted the title using rustic red Lumiere paints...El Grande Worry...and then attached my rope worry doll.

My worry doll is about 7" tall. She's made from course rope that I bought yesterday from The Art House Studio in Kitchener. Then I wrapped the rope with jute from the dollar store. This made her very stiff and you could actually pose her. I added the raffia hair and clothing from my stash and she was complete.