Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Goldwork hacks and makeovers

So I worked on the or nue dragonfly for a while, before deciding that a. the design wasn't right for the technique,  b.  wondered if I should just unpick and repair, and then c. after unpicking, which took ages, decided I didn't want to spend precious time disguising a repair, time that could be spent on a new work.  And I had a new idea for stitching that I might as well get onto. More about that later.



Soooooo, I beaded around the edge of the stitched area, inserted a little feature of blue beads, cut out the whole area, as you see above, then backed it with card stock.  Now it's attached to the card with gorilla glue. Seen here drying under a heavy glass sheet.
Once dried, I can trim card and fabric together close to the beading before applying a pin to the back.  And it will be a nice little bar pin.




Then there were several other painted wood pins I did ages ago and had not yet put the pin mechanism on the back.  So I did that, while the gorilla was on the clock.




On a roll now, you know how it goes, I realized that one of the motifs on the trial piece I made when I was teaching myself goldwork would also make a nice pin, triangle about two inches on a side, nice dramatic pin.  So that's now cut out, gorilla'ed to card, and it's drying.  The glue seeping through around the sides will be all cut away in the finishing.




And I remembered the Lord Ganesh little figure off the gift box from Diwali, gorilla'ed him to a metallic blue painted wood disk.  At that point I ran out of wood disks!

So there you have it.  When an embroidery doesn't work, call in the wild animals and the tools and make it into something different!  I'll show you the results once the glue is dry.  If I like the results, every pin is one of a kind, I'll offer them on here at  nice modest prices for holiday planning.  

Ganesh is mine, though. 


4 comments:

  1. You really have been a busy bee! I love the Ganesh pin, it is really beautiful. :)

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  2. Would you consider all that up-cycling? Maybe not but they all look great.

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  3. amazing how much a gorilla can help some beauties here especially like the painted wooden button pins

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  4. You've been busy hanging out with Mr. Gorilla. Must admit he IS a handsome fellow and worth spending time with.

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