Bethjoy.com

While on our California trip we entered a store that sold the most beautiful pictures. They were embroidered with silk threads on silk cloth on the effect was absolutely stunning. Some of the pictures, like their prices, were huge. Far surpassing the beauties of oil paintings the pictures seemed to capture light and hold it captive so that as you moved a shine greeted the eye where ever it looked.

After oohing and awing over the multi-thousand dollar pictures I thought it would be wonderful to have one so I walked over to the \”inexpensive\” section and looked at the $150.00 pictures where were probably about seven inches square. And I looked at them. They were pictures of just a simple flower. And I thought, \”I could do that.\” And yesterday, I proved it!

True, this is nothing so gorgeous as the pictures we saw there but considering the fact that the design I used was from a dollar coloring book and used to be a color by number design. Considering the fact that I was just using embroidery thread I already had. Considering the fact that instead of spending the year it would take an artist to do one of those gorgeous embroidered pictures and I only spent one afternoon. Considering that I had almost no clue of what I was doing and had no instruction book whatsoever and was just operating with the TLAR method (That Looks About Right). Considering the fact that I only figured out what I was doing about halfway into the project… I think I did okay. Any way, it didn\’t cost me $150.00 and I’ll enjoy it just as much if not more so I\’m very happy about that.

There it is! My “Yellow Rose Not From Texas”. Pretty isn’t it? I’ve already started on another picture from the same coloring book.

I thought I was very clever the way I solved one problem that arose during the making of the rose. I was trying to trace the design from the coloring book onto the fabric. If you have ever tried tracing you will know that the thicker and harder to see through the paper, the harder it is trace. Most fabrics are challenging to see through. The blue fabric I chose was no exception. After a great deal of time spent trying to see through it I suddenly remembered a behind the scenes video I’d seen on a disney DVD. It was of the animators drawing there cartoons on a lighted panel so that the drawing below could be seen plainly through onto the page above it. Not having a lighted surface to draw on I improvised. I had a desk lamp that was \”flexible\” and after putting the fabric on top of that which I was to trace and holding it to the light and being pleasantly greeted by an excellantly rendered image of a rose, I began to seek some flat surface that would allow light through. Tracing on a round light bulb did not seem like a good idea. So I found a plastic lid to a small xtorage pin and the lid let enough through for me to trace so sitting on the bed with the lamp on it\’s side and kind of in my lap, balancing a lid on my knees I isolated the coloring book page and began the delicate process of tracing. I’m terrible at drawing but fortuantely I\’m not too bad at tracing so the task was completed without too many mistakes. I thought I was very clever with the way I solved the tracing issues:)

Also, I pulled out my camera for the first time in about a year. That is a good sign of things to come!!! I think I may try taking pictures of things I make now so that even after I give them away I\’ll know what it was I made:)