Completed Panel

I have finished my panel - which in this case is an memory album cover. Its done but I am not completely satisfied by it. It looks a little unpolished and homely for my taste. I think I could have benefited from doing a little bit more sampling. I restricted myself to only hand dyed fabrics as well, which I tended to rip up - which left things rather rough. Sometimes this was good but this also meant I used torn strips of fabric instead of ribbon for the ribbon embroidery which is usually a lot more refined with the traditional ribbon.

The shapes and drawing were fairly childlike (my current unpracticed standard). M pointed out that for this project it was entirely appropriate because the project is about my childhood memory and the child in me. One benefit of this is that I needed to get back to the drawing of my childhood - the time before I became self concious of drawing and "judging" my efforts to be not "good enough". From that basis I can go on and develop my abilities - the only way I will ever improve. "Mighty Oaks from little acorns grow" - more on which later this week.



The costs for this particular project were kept lower due to me reusing a lot of fabric scraps. Also the background linen I used were discounted linen napkins from Habitat. The time taken for this project was reduced considerably. I was also more proactive about getting it done. Although there is still room for improvement I have managed to scale down my time and costs something I highlighted after completing my wallhanging. So in a way this has been successful.

The back of the book has this teapot - I used the iris motif as a corny reference to my Grandmother. She liked many flowers - however she was not overly fond of irises due to the name link and she was given rather a lot. I followed the shape from a teapot I saw in the V&A.