It Has Been a Minute!

During the pandemic, I took a kawandi-making class and made this piece. It is called "The Days Run Hot and Cold." That is how I was feeling at the time. I made lots of "mistakes" with this first kawandi. I didn't know how to judge where to add my pieces, so some of the seams were not secured as they needed to be. That "mistake" led me to adding some embroidery onto the surface. I ended up thinking it wasn't a mistake but a learning opportunity. I learned that I liked embroidery on my pieces.

My next piece is called "166 Days" representing the time I didn't get to see my grandchildren. I was feeling pretty black/white/gray! The spots of color (made with sari silk ribbon remnants) represent the times I DID get to "see" them via FaceTime. Some closeups are below. You can see the marking of time--the embroidered hashmarks on the surface. There are 166 hashmarks. All of the stitching is by hand.

I was so excited about making these little pieces (ranging in size from 18" square to 22" square) that I thought I'd start experimenting to see what stripes looked like. I thought this one was a "happy" looking piece. It made me smile, and I needed that.

Then, I thought, "How would it change the piece if I incorporated solids with the stripes." I still liked it, but it didn't change the looks as much as I thought it would.

Then, I decided I wanted to do a piece using ironed silk sari ribbon--all VERY narrow pieces. BIG MISTAKE! I love the look of the piece, but it was a real pain (literally) to do. The silk was SO hard to sew through that I injured my wrist. (It even dulled several needles!) My wrist was so wrecked that I couldn't hand stitch for a month and a half.

As many of you know, my husband died in 2019. I thought I'd do some "memory quilts" using his polyester ties from the 70s and 80s. (He had been a coach and had quite a few "wild" ties.) This is the first. I called it "Close Ties."

 This next one is one of my favorites. It is called "The Man Loved Brown." He did! I really like the unplanned partial spiral I got from the improv piecing.

I have some more Siddi/kawandi/inspired pieces to share with you. I'll save those for another day. I have to see if I can even remember how to publish a new post and figure out how to get it to you. Let me know if you still even read blog posts.