Embroidered Collage

The turtles are all done and wrapped over stretcher bars and ready to be given to their new owner.  This piece has a home waiting for it because it was a part of a grab bag challenge from my artist's group, The Fiber Alliance.  Unfortunately I won't be able to deliver it in person at the meeting this weekend, but I'm looking forward to finding out whose materials I received and worked with and what the artist who received the materials that I provided did with them.  Hopefully someone will post pictures!

Originally I had been going to form a separate line with the red hexagons, but found that they worked best when the complemented the presence of the embroidered turtle by putting the brightest of them right at the center.  I also had been going to put in another line with the other 5 green turtle beads that I had, but it just distracted from the piece, so I only put the one in for contrast and a bit of whimsy.

More than most of my other pieces this one looks different depending on how far away you stand.  Much more than a few feet away and all you see is the sweep of red.  When you get closer you can see the details and interpret the abstracted subject matter.  I like the effect, although I think the next time I work with sashiko, and I do intend there to be a next time, I want a greater value difference between the background and the stitching.  I want it to pop like the traditional patterns do.

I made a list of the previous posts in my Studio News entry about this piece, if you didn't catch them all as I was writing them.