Lobster Designs

In other news, you know that strange thing you see in some Egyptian paintings hanging down from goddesses' armpits, or occasionally behind their backs? I've finally found out what it is: a peculiar counterweight to a heavy bead necklace. Apparently the object in question was, amongst other things, associated with potency and fertility. Yep, I could see how people could make those associations.

ETA: Halfway decent photos are finally here! I'll try to take even better ones outdoors before I send it off. Click on the thumbnails for huge images.

Unfortunately I'm rather tired out from all the basting, so I've had to take a few days off while I wait for my hands to stop aching, but I'm sure I'll be quilting soon. Ironically, I spent ages with my support worker creating a huge diamond grid from 15 sheets of paper I'd printed out and taped together, and then I absent-mindedly marked the grid on the wrong way around, after all that fuss! So I'll have to recalculate where I put the beaded stars, but I think it should still be perfectly manageable. For some reason everyone seems to be incapable of taking a non-blurry photo of the thing. I can take a close-up of the centre if anyone wants to see the embroidery detail, such as the stripes on the waistband.

The tendinitis is still present but easing up, so I'm managing some embroidery again, huzzah! The body is now outlined, the face is done (not mad about the lips but after trying six versions on scraps, I think they're as good as they're going to get), the hair-ribbon is outlined, and I'm nearly half-way through outlining the wings. I also completed one of my trial versions of the papyrus clumps.

Photos below: do remember that this is draped across my sofa, so it's not lying flat by any means. The face looks a bit better than that, and the papyrus clumps on the right wouldn't look quite so odd.

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The proper version:

This quilt depicts the life-giving goddess Isis kneeling among papyrus flowers under a starry sky. Her wings represent her Protectress aspect. From the lotus flowers in the borders to the horned sun disk headdress, the design has been carefully adapted from original ancient Egyptian artwork, including the gold coffin of King Tutankhamun and frescoes from the tomb of Queen Nefertari. The quilt was entirely hand-sewn and uses piecing, appliqué, embroidery, metallic threads, beading and quilting.

The improper version:

I'm just in it for the boobs, really. What do we want in our handicrafts? Beads, shiny pretty threads and nudity all the way! If I dress it up in ancient Art then we can fool the critics and pull in the moon-worshipping Goddess-dancing womynfolk too.

Further suggestions welcome.

Incidentally, I've taken a few stitches last night and today. I don't want to start properly until I'm off the painkillers, but a few minutes here and there shouldn't hurt. I've outlined the left hand now at least. Slight ache along my left forearm muscles, so I should probably leave it now for a good few hours at the very least. I think the couching is going to be the worst part with regard to muscle pain, and unfortunately that's what I have to finish off first. There's a bit of arm and the feet left to outline in ordinary thread, then I have to outline the wings in metallic thread which will be hellish.

I just tried out a few more patterns for Isis' dress, picked one I liked, and embroidered the knee with it. It doesn't work. It's too busy, and D just remarked that it looks like tartan. So I'll unpick it, leaving the blue outlining in place, and then when it comes to quilting it I can always put in the lattice design by quilting along every other line on the fabric pattern. Whereas for the teal latticewing sections under the arms, I'm thinking of quilting along every line, as a small lattice is surprisingly traditional in that area and I have to distinguish them somehow. Using different colours for the threads (e.g. a darker emerald/teal green on the wing sections and a light aqua blue on the dress) may help as well. Should I bead the dress at all, do you think? I'll do the rest of the embroidery first and see how it all looks then.

The other change, apart from the feathers being nearly done (I ran out of gold metallic thread near the end), is that I've outlined the body on the left and the feet in orange thread. I'm not sure whether it stands out enough or whether I might actually be better off using a medium-darkish brown, not quite as dark as the hair and eyes (the brown for the eyes will more or less read as black), instead. After all, original frescoes often gave these ladies fairly pale skin but then outlined it firmly in black.

( Photos )

Next job: trying out Version 3 of the papyrus flowers, this time for a right hand side clump, and after that hopefully embroidering the things onto the quilt at last. Although I may need to order more thread once I know which ones I'll be using, I got a good deal on eBay for fifteen different threads but they were all 4m rather than the usual 8m stitchbows, and I think some of them may run out.

I finished the appliqué last night (I went for the light green plinth border) and the borders are all on too, so I'm gazing proudly at the completed top. At least, the piecing is completed. The embroidery is another story. I've just done the first set of feathers, couching all six strands of gold metallic, and it's awkward, slow and has come out unevenly. I think I'm going to unpick it and then try two strands metallic, two strands ordinary yellow embroidery floss, which should be a hell of a lot easier to handle and also postpone the time when I run out of metallic thread. Meanwhile, I feel slightly discouraged, although it'll be fine when I get a fresh start tomorrow. I used the small version of the Q-snap and it really doesn't have the tension for embroidery, so I think I'll have to use an embroidery hoop and hope it doesn't crease the top too badly. Although on that subject, I starched the cream fabric twice before cutting it up for the background, and it definitely made life a lot easier. I also tried embroidering the face onto the scrap where I'd originally tried turning under the seam allowances on that shape. The eye came out OK, and I quite like the colours I used, but dear me, the satin stitched mouth looked awful! Oh, and it's a bastard to mark the feathers on, I have to clear the part of my glass desk that doesn't have a cutting mat on it (but does have, for instance, the laptop), put a spotlight lamp underneath the glass, arrange the master diagram - where I spent a while going over the feather lines in black ink - and the quilt top over it, weight it down with whatever's handy, and then try to trace the lines with a silver quilting pencil which keeps breaking. I more or less got the lines where I want them, though the quilt top kept moving about and I could barely see through the fabric to the lines I was tracing. Grrr! Still, that's one wing marked up.



You can see the whole thing, more or less, plonked on the sofa here.

After gradually designing, making the templates, and cutting fabric (almost entirely done), I put needle to fabric for the first time today.

( Isn't it pretty! )