My Tapestries in Suspension

It was my turn to sit at the Tinning St gallery today.  There were a few visitors but there was also some down time.  I have a new camera and I took the book along to read.  I took the camera too, of course.
So here are a few photos of my tapestries from varying angles.

My work was based on the idea that we have times in our lives when we are snuggled up cosily in our little cocoons but then things happen (whether caused by outside forces or from within) and we have to move on, change our directions, etc.  Then we start again in another cocoon and the journey goes on.

The thought behind these pieces is that the front of the tapestry is what you see from the outside and the back represents what is going on out of sight.  So there are bumps and rough patches visible from the outside but inside is more complicated and messy - there are soft spots as well as rough spots but it is not the same as the image we present to the world. It is not necessarily worse, it is just different.

You can see this one on the loom, and just off the loom, here.

It is the same one as the above image.  It moves gently in the moving air.

 Here is a link showing the back tapestry on the loom.

The front tapestry is here. 

 This is taken from below, experimenting with the camera settings. 

Another taken from below.

My pieces are the cocoons along the window wall and the three tapestries hanging in the distance. The afternoon light was lovely on the teardrop pieces. 

Making the peel-based cocoon

As the paper template didn't seem to be working that well, I thought I would try it using a different medium. I traced the lemon peel to make a template and decided to use free motion sewing, on dissolvable fabric.
 It turned out rather small.

I decided to enlarge it, using  the photo I had taken of the peel.  I took out the colour and highlighted the edges in Photoshop.  I used the actual photo so the proportions would stay the same.  I divided the image into four pieces and made them A4 sized.  I printed them out, stuck them together and traced it onto the dissolvable fabric.

You can see the smaller cocoon on the right of the template.

I used some small pieces of fabric to give depth and some stability to the free motion sewing.

Now I have a larger cocoon.  It still doesn't fit together as well as I envisaged but it doesn't matter as I am aiming to produce distressed, abandoned cocoons.

I am not that happy with it as the colours change too markedly for my taste.  However, it is a good sample and I am learning as I go.