Bojagi

This work was completed in May 2015 and never posted. I've been away from the blogging scene for many reasons.

This work was inspired by a friend that made a Bojagi piece after viewing an art installation at a local Fibre art show. It's a Korean technique that I researched after seeing what my friend had made.

The Group of Eight's quarterly challenge was that we needed to use something that was embroidered.

I was not currently working on anything that was embroidered and haven't for a very long time. It's very time consuming and therefore almost never comes into my mind for anything related to my artwork.

I did, however, have many squares made many years ago...probably prior to 15 years, somewhere in my unfinished projects. I knew I would never use them for anything else and I certainly wasn't going to complete the medallion that they were supposed to surround....

I decided that I would make a bojagi center and surround them with the embroidered squares. I thought this would make a wonderful duvet cover for my bed. Once I started I knew I just wanted to get the damn thing done so I ended up making a table cloth. In some ways a waste of all the hours of embroidery along with the hours spent making the bojagi center. But I did complete it and I do like it very much. I think it's a contemporary feel to an old art.

The following pictures are the embroidered squares that were placed around the Bojagi center. Each square is done twice for a total of twelve embroidered pieces.

Beaded Coin

My Turkish piece is almost complete. I have just a little more embroidery to do tonight & then I have to mount it. So I'm very close. The picture is of a coin that I attached by surrounding it with beads. It's the first time I've ever done it & I will admit to bead enthusiasts that I have no idea if this was done "correctly". The first time the coin popped out...so I redid it and this one seems to want to stay put.

Beading...beading...BEADING

Here's more eye candy from my Turkish piece. I've been beading most nights and quite a few hours on the weekends & I'm only getting close to half way.

I have deadlines on other projects and I'm having trouble getting to them. Once the beading begins there is a mountain of beads & threads on my work surface. Having to clear everything away in order to get my mind set on something else is very difficult for me. This is all I think about in the studio...at least for the time being.

Extreme Beading

My Turkish camel piece is still being worked on. As you can see the beading has begun.  This piece has been in stages for nine months now. I had a full Saturday in my studio when I had set everything up to start quilting it. Well...you know what they say to best laid plans...it didn't work out very well. I've elaborated below if you're interested.

This project just didn't want to be machined. I did something that I never do. I stitched & ripped out all day long. Every time I started I would end up ripping it out. This was my whole day in the studio. Then I just decided that this piece just didn't want to be machine quilted. So now it's all up to hand embroidery & beading. Oh my goodness it'll be many more months before it's completed.

I asked my husband to source out an audio book for me so that I could be in my studio quietly so as to not disturb my son. This is also something that never happens. I love music in the studio...something that I don't think about...just work through. The next Saturday in the studio was very rewarding. I can't sit or stand for great lengths so I break it up and do many things during the day. I was very happy with the beading and Sunday morning I thought that I would quietly slip back to the studio for another day of audio & hand work. To my surprise, my audio book was complete within minutes. I actually burned through 10 hours of audio on Saturday without having any clue as to the amount of time spent. I was literally shocked. I have never counted time in the studio so I was completely clueless. The next shock...was how little seems to be done. I still have over 3/4 of the project to go through. The picture doesn't show the whole of the beaded area...just a taster.

Monochromatic Challenge

The last challenge submission for the GOE Group was Monochromatic. I had no idea what I wanted to do and all I was thinking about was spring and purchasing seeds for our property. I was also consumed with bees...and learning all I could for our new apiary. All I could come up with was a flower...monochromatic was devastatingly hard for someone who loves colour. It was extremely hard to take a picture of the finished piece because it's 3D and the beads reflect from every angle.

I have details of the progress but it's way too many pictures.

I started out using flexi firm purchased from my local Fabricland.  Then I stitched stainless steel 20 gauge wire to the underside of all the petals. I gesso'd both sides, added cheese cloth & painted it with a gel matte medium & jacquard textile paint. Then I spread some molding paste over everything in a very random...scratchy motion. These are the brighter portions in the pictures because after you apply molding paste, those parts don't absorb the paint in the same way. After the molding paste was dry, I then applied paint & hand stitched for some added texture. Then I decided to add some encaustic wax over the whole top side of the petals. Once I did this the hand stitching actually changed colour & the embroidery was less visible. I wasn't really expecting that but I was reading a book called Hot Textiles...and that's what she did and I loved the effect. My pictures don't get as close as her professional pictures in the book so you really can't get a feel for that.

All the petals were stitched together and then nailed to a back board. I then worked on the center beading, adding sequins and stuffing in a donut shape so that the very center is actually recessed a bit for an added 3D element.

 Posting has become a very difficult task lately. Not only does one have to find time...but one has to find time where the computer is not in use. In my house this is becoming quite the task. Is it too hard to ask for a dedicated computer that has some speed to it. Is this growing world of computers one would assume that we could have fast service but I'm finding that it's getting slower & slower...and this "cloud" is bogging everything down. lol. I've been working on this posting in my spare minutes for days....crazy...In my next life, I will have a computer that works fast and I'll have all kinds of time for my studio.

If you want to see more pictures of the process...

Poppy Cock

During the Christmas season I was temporarily blocked out of my studio in order to set up a bed for family coming home for the holidays. I have a real problem when I don't have my studio to turn to and subsequently I couldn't stop thinking about what I could work on the minute the studio was back to being open. I had 3 days in the studio and I wanted to make the most of it. On my design wall I had a 2nd background that I had pinned together when I was making "Cock of the Rock". I figured that this was a great place to start so down came the background for "Poppy Cock". It took me a full day to play and tweak it until I was happy.

During the tweaking period, I had my daughters transgender kitty wanting attention...smack dab in the middle of what I was working on. Of course I'm allergic to cats...so anyone that knows anything about cats...knows that this was par for the course.

It took me another day to quilt the background. I was having trouble with my sewing machine and it just wouldn't work with the gold metallic thread that I really wanted, so I had to make do with a gold coloured embroidery thread. Still ok but not exactly what I wanted. On the 3rd day I worked on the rooster. In this picture he has no legs and I really wasn't happy with his wing.

I painted his face...OMG...I was so happy with his face. During the delicate painting of his face I had a surprise...transgender kitty decided to jump on my back because I wasn't paying him enough attention. So there I was hunched over my rooster, pallet in one hand and brush in the other, thinking OMG, if kitty jumps down on my work surface...all those little LOOSE bits of fabric feathers...are gone. Then of course my back got all itchy from the claws that went into my back and I was done for the day.

I finished stitching down all the feathers, added his feet, touched up the legs with some paint and he was essentially done. So now I'm contemplating beading this piece like I did with "Cock of the Rock". I know I'd really like it to be beaded but it would take months of work before I was satisfied. So he's not totally done but he's done for now.