From little acorns grows a big leafy framed thing

Remember this piece?

Here it is at the show. I had a nightmare about this one being at the framers. I dreamed that they had trashed it and I had to spend a long time shouting very loud. ‘Cause shouting makes it better, of course. I never normally shout, I just dream about getting very angry and shouty when I’m stressed.

Anyway, no harm came to it at the framers, and all was well. I’m pleased with how it looks in the frame, hanging there at the show. It got a lot of compliments, which was really nice.

It was a really long time in development, not just because all the 300 leaves took so long to cut and sew.

My original blog post about it is below. Its interesting to go back and see where I was a few weeks ago. Each piece I make is imbued with memories and associations. This one will always remind me of my good friend Rachael, as I was with her when I bought the fabric. The design is very loosely inspired by a pincushion which is also associated with Rachael – entirely random, but entirely satisfying.

A few months ago I bought some vintage orange spotty synthetic fabric because it was there. I quite liked it, but wasn’t sure how on earth I would use something so stiff, shiny and synthetic. Its just not my thing. While making little folded petals for a book project (which I didn’t in the end use) it struck me that this orange fabric would make nice big folded petals. So I set a student to cutting, folding, stitching. I tried a couple of ideas with them. Didn’t like what happened. Put them back in the box. And there they have sat for several weeks while I was busy doing other things. Last week I started playing with them and another idea occurred to me, which I immediately sampled and then put back with a happy sigh. The right idea. Then this week I put the final piece in the design jigsaw and I know that I’m making a big piece of orange folded petal-y things and have a student in place to cut, fold and stitch the rest of the elements in place next week. I may not like the result so it may never see the light of day (or light of blog). That happens too. But hopefully I’ve got it right on this one. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you!

With many thanks to Nomie, Jolene and Helen who have all worked on this piece with me.