Monday 9 July 2012

THE JOY OF THREAD / Part 2 Preparation

Today I started preparing my mess of threads, wools, ribbons and all for the next exercise, by getting out all my bags and sorting them out into similar colours. I don't know if everyone on this course is like this, but I have multiple bags of tangled yarn I have collected from various eras of my sewing/knitting/embroidery life. Some of them were given to me, or left to me.  Sitting in the middle of the floor of the spare bedroom and sorting through them was a journey and could not be done quickly.  Each one of them has a history, but that was not where I went...

I was transported by the colours and textures to a world where time stood still, and the feel and sensation drew me in to atmospheres rich and rare. I have some wonderful things in there. I put in some raffia, ancient metallic ribbons and lace, scraps of tissue paper and transparent sweety wrappings that I love the look and feel of. I have stuck some bits into my scrap book with little sketches of my diversions of delight. If the idea was to inspire, it's working.

I do have some reservations about my sketch book at the moment. I feel rather constrained by it, because of what has gone into it so far being largely pencil drawings. I've been loving the improvement in my drawing ability that's resulting from drawing every day, but - I don't know - it isn't messy enough! I think I have to think of it more as an ideas book than a sketch book and see if that works better. I'm also not so sure how to decide what to put in there as opposed to what goes in the theme books.

Unfortunately my printer is out of ink and is therefore only able to give me black and white, or unpredictable colour.

Having said unfortunately, this has actually produced a couple of interesting textures and I am putting them into my theme books as variations on a theme. I am going to have to remember to switch my camera to high resolution when I'm taking inspiration photos, so that I can enlarge bits of them.

Writing this blog has the unexpected effect of freeing my mind up so I stop being neurotic about little things and let my enthusiasm take me on to the next thing. I guess it's a good thing!

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