Friday 9 March 2012

"I shouldn't have eaten that"

Today I finished something that I started way back last year when I was in halls and had no money for anything but had enough canvas bags that I could cut up one and not miss it. I've had a bunch of embroidery thread knocking round my room forever- when I was younger I occasionally did cross stitch, and I had a whole mini business making friendship bracelets at one point. Shut up in winter in the city with no money but an embroidery hoop and a back catalogue of 4od documentaries, I sat down and started this.




I don't usually do embroidery, for a number of reasons:

  1. It takes too much patience and visual concentration. Unlike knitting where you can get into a rhythm and look away, you nearly always have to look at what you're doing.
  2. It's kinda pointless. When you're done you don't really have anything of use.
  3. It's delicate. The end product can snag on things or fade or get distorted or get ruined by dirty hands.
But here, well, I had no money. I had nothing to do. Embroidery takes up very little space. It encourages concentration. For me it was practically free (I had to buy a pack of hand sewing needles).




I like the ship a lot. There are probably a few people out there who think I should have stuck with the ship and avoided the puke wave and dinosaur, but I started with the dinosaur, so that's kind of a moot point. Originally it was going to be an artist dinosaur puking a rainbow.



If you look closely you might notice that this is all freehand and crazy. I made up half the stitches instead because in my opinion many traditional stitches use too much thread (especially something like satin stitch).

And yes, if anyone is wondering, it is for sale. I haven't decided if I am going to do an Ebay auction or put it up on Etsy with a fixed price.

This is the kind of thing I do as procrastination from everything I'm supposed to be doing . I will get a Second Class degree, but damn, I'll have some weird things in my bottom drawer to show for it.

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