27 | February | 2014 | Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Empty Spools at Asilomar: Wednesday 26 February 2014

27 02 2014

Another great work day today. Almost finished my second piece and should start my third tomorrow. Photos below…

No planned activities tonight so many of us went back to our classrooms to continue working, me included.

Meals today: breakfast: scrambled eggs and sausage links, though opted for cereal instead; lunch: vegetable tortilla soup, pork with chilli and soft tortillas; dinner: choice of fish, chicken and vegetarian pasta — I opted for the pasta. Still way too much food.

My second piece

For my second piece, I decided to do my friend Sue’s cat, Kassie. Sue had sent me the photo some time back, and it was such a pretty photo it was impossible not to consider it for thread painting. And Sue’s a ‘pink’ girl, so the pink spots on the tissue paper Kassie is lying on were perfect. To set it off, I purchased a pink and white spot fat quarter from the store set up here as Asilomar for the quilting weeks.

The biggest problem with doing a cat like this was how to stitch the folds of white fur. The black was easy, and the places where the fur laid down in one direction was also fairly easy, but those folds were hard to do. I started off with a soft tan thread, then some grey, then cream and an off white, and after I had finished stitching, I used a soft grey Copic marker to shade the folds a little.

Getting the eyes right was also problematic. I got all the black, grey, and various green colours stitched down, but the eyes were flat/dead. So I added a touch of yellow thread under each iris slit, then a touch of white painted into the centre, and shaded the edges of the eye with the grey Fabrico marker. The eyes then came to life!

I guess I used about 15 or more different shades of thread in this piece, including a metallic silver thread in the neck bauble.

The first photo below is the original, followed by the photos as I progressed. As with the cowboy, once I got into the groove of the stitching, I forgot to stop and take progress photos for each step!