A Jolly Successful Day

I started with a great, powerful swim of 1250 metres.  Then I went along to see my friend Susan, to be photographed for her website in my new cardigan.  Susan space dyes homegrown wool from her own sheep.  Susan has her own website where she sells her wool, and I said she needed to promote it as suitable for very simple knitting patterns in order to showcase the beautiful dyeing, and also suitable for beginner knitters as the space dyeing is very forgiving of slightly uneven tension.  People look at the variation in colours, not the imperfect tension.  It is fantastic yarn.

I reflected on my thoughts about creating a domestic scene for my final year show.  Quite simply this is what I want to do.  It took me back to when I returned from Australia, and I was so relieved to come home - coming home made me full of contentment, peace and joy.  I'm beyond being a strident feminist (I'm a quiet, reflective one); I don't want to do banner waving; or creating powerful statement art.  My stuff is about the domestic, reflective appreciation of under-recognised people.  Now I am back to domestic textiles, I feel contented, peaceful and creative again.  I just want to get stuck in and make.  The feeling of paralysis has gone.

I have spent today messing about with the chair cushions on my rocking chair.  A very useful learning exercise.  Nothing like right yet, but a very insightful process.  I have got the base cushion right, and as yet, the back cushion is still too big, and the arm cushions are too big in the padded area, and too short in the side panel.  The fabric design is too basic, but I am ok with this.  The important thing is, I now know what to do about it.  I like the handle of the fabric, so I will digitally print on this again.  I know what order to construct the internal panels (botched it, this time around, but next time I know what to do).

None of the cushions are fixed in position yet, but I have already done a lot of learning about the process.

I like the hand stitched caption.  Next time I try stitching on a patterned fabric.

Tomorrow I'm back to uni, messing about with my drawings on photoshop.  I am happily working on layers of objects, where I am varying the scale, and trying to work out how to bring colour back into my work.