Monday, August 11, 2008

Insanity Improv


It is very hard to photograph metallics and beads but I hope you can get a sense of how nicely Insanity Improv turned out.

The challenges were many on this piece as Gay Ann Rogers deliberately omits any hints as to what colors to put where, or even what threads to use beyond starting with Watercolours or an overdye. I deliberately went with threads I could ply, even unraveling the four plies of the strand of Pebbly Perle to do the lace outline with only one ply. The original outlines were the entire strand of Pebbly Perle covered with four plies of silk to raise them a lot but the corner lines were only two strands of silk covered with metallic. I doubled the blending filament to couch those corner lines but only used one strand of blending filament to do the side stars. I ended up doing opposite corners with two colors of silk and metallic, changing one to more blue and one to more green. I wasn't thrilled with either but together they worked so I left those colors to vary. I did add black beads to the center around the edges of the waffle stitch. It needled something there.

It was a fun challenge and a nice break from the wizard. Thank you, Gay Ann!

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