Saturday, August 18, 2012

Wild Horses!

Here's the center motif of a little piece depicting a T'ang porcelain horse, I'm told a priceless artwork in some midwestern museum.  I'm going to decide what kind of background will work with this -- in fact I'd welcome any ideas from blogistas on this -- colors? stitches? color mixes?  bearing in mind that the motif -- see the accompanying ruler -- is about three inches total in each direction.









This is the kind of totally self indulgent stuff I love to do now and then.  The pattern is from a detective story by Monica Ferris, sorry, forget which of her books, but she always has a little design or tips on some needlework method in her detection.  She turned me onto the hardanger, in fact, and I plan to do more of that.  And I recommend her books as a nice light read with needlework interest added in.  The T'ang horse was an important plot point in the book the diagram comes in.


But once my horse is done, I'm on to blackwork, the real thing this time, since I now have the fabric and the right floss to work with, plus a great lesson series lent by a friend.

I find that I'm not a UFO type of person, feeling very uncomfortable if I have several needlework projects at different stages.  No good telling myself I'll do what the mood calls for, not that kind of artist at all.  I've always worked regardless of mood, weather, crises, so that doesn't work as a rationale for me.  And I currently have my little horse, a turtle, my nametag all hanging fire.  I did complete my black and white bird and the little drawing black piece, both on lawn, and need to stretch and frame or something.  The turtle I'll do along with the blackwork, maybe..and I'll GET the nametag done, not much left to do.

4 comments:

  1. I'm not very good with having lots in progress either. I get way too easily distracted. Thanks so much for the lovely comment, I really appreciate it!

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  2. i've finally made it round to your blog and want to thank you for commenting on mine and leading me here.

    i'm going to settle in to a nice bit of exploring as your work looks diverse and beautiful.

    i notice that the T'ang horse is really quite small~!
    i'm not sure of a background color . . . maybe a rich bright red? will be watching to see what you decide.

    i admire your ability to minimize your project list. i have MANY projects all going at once and sometimes i wonder how it would be to just work on one or two things at time . . .

    :-)
    libbyQ

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  3. What color? You could either go for contrast, or pastel effect. I would choose something crazy, like bright red (but you know my stuff). It all depends on what mood you are going for, and whether you would want it to jump at you, or wait to be discovered. I would say, decide on loudness level and what mood you are going for, then the right color suggest itself to you :)

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  4. Love this horse. I hate having UFOs in the same craft but am generally ok with having one in several crafts on the go. Trouble is, that the guilts set in if one of them is left for any length of time. My worst sin in buying the materials for a project I just HAVE to make and taking forever to start it.

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Thank you so much for commenting! it means a lot to me to know you're out there and reading and enjoying.