Chelsea Swan

Ok so time to do some reflections.

So I did an embroidery piece based on Lady Lazarus. I really identified with the poem. I feel like embroider, and sequins and bows as symbols of feminity and creativity and the marginalisation suit the subject matter. At first I did the pink bits in the blue cotton but the image was unbalanced so I added the pink to balance and highlight the feminie aspects. The body is based on my body because its me that identified themseves withing the work of Silbia Plath and withing the ideas of the poem. Blue is chosen for obvious reasons. The image is of Lady Lazarus / Plath / Me with red hair (in the poem but also red in the womans colour) floating in the ocean or rising through the air. I used acrylic inks to add more colour, box in the female image, who is floating in the white space.

I need to work on borders. I was thinking of trying felting but the testers (next post) did not quite work as I hoped. No one seems to understand that the way in which the fibers look next to the embroidery fabric, the embroidery cottons, the inks, and any combination thereof do not work. The textures are off, they are not cohesive, it becomes two separate elements. Maybe for another image but I am doubtful. Either way the embroideries currently end too abruptly, in or out of the circles. Things either look right to my eye or don’t, things are either fit for purpose or not. I am picky but I would rather that than churn out off center things.

I have made ocean based embroideries in the past that were full of different stitches and looked lovely but took hours. I remmebered that on this piece as I have too many ideas and not enough time to spend months on one piece. Instead of using multiple stitches and filling in the whole ocean with embroidery I just used a back stitch. I only thought at the end that I should have used a wave stitch. So obvious now and would not have taken too much extra time and would have fit the subject so much better.

My biggest challenge is time. I have too many things I want to do and make and I also loose interest if something takes too long. I swing between wanting to focus on one thing to wanting to make lots and quickly. this took about a week and it killed me spending so long on it. I have to be careful not to cut corners.