Sunday 28 February 2010

Another Bite at the Cherry.

Himotaba was finished. I'd punched the air, woo-hooed and skipped around the room (Yes, I do know how sad I am) but still I had this nagging doubt. The comments left on my previous post seemed to echo my thoughts and Jane was able to express them clearly. The tassel was too 'mean' for a double central cord.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

So what to do now? My big problem was that despite my reservations I had gone ahead and done the finishing, including gluing the back with wheat starch. For fear of getting paste on the fabric, I applied a very thin layer along the lines of the tassel. None the less, I was concerned that if I attempted to remove the stitching it would damage the fabric. Fortunately, Susan provided me with idea that might 'beef' up my tassels without reverse stitching what I had already one. For Phase V, Susan stitched the Kumihomi Cord clutch bag. The tassel on the back of the bag is almost identical to the tassel on Himotaba. The two major differences are that the Kumihomi Cord tassel has twice as many strands as Himotaba one and the tips of the pink tassel change to gold. I really like the gold tips but really did not want to risk removing any of the pasted stitching, however, I did think that I could stitch an additional line of staggered diagonals between the existing lines. I spent from Sunday to Friday debating with myself whether or not to do this.

On Friday morning, I decided I should do it. An hour later I had stitched 3 lines between the existing lines and there was no going back. Which of course is the ideal time for the internal critic to chime in and tell me that I had made a BIG mistake.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Another 24 hours later, I decided that there was no going back, so I had to live with my decision and finishing stitching between all of the lines.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

The more I stitched, the more confident I became that I had made the right decision and when I finished I was much more satisfied with the tassel.

After seeing Susan's tassel with it's gold tips, I was very tempted to stitch mine in a similar way but still I did not want the tassel to completely dominate the design. I hope that the version I have settled on provides the right balance of a tassel befitting a double central cord but one that does not detracted from the other cords.

Happy Stitching

8 comments:

Jeanne said...

I thought I liked the tassel before, but now it's even better! Good decision!

Anonymous said...

Wow fantastic!!! it looks wonderful!


Nice job.

Ann Flowers
flowerscrazyq@gmail.com

Rachel said...

Definitely a good decision. You will show us the whole completed panel, won't you?

meri said...

This is wonderful!Really.

Sue said...

My what a cherry and worth waiting for. Looking foward to seeing for real. Sue XX

Jane said...

I really like this now. Think this has worked really well.

j

Christine said...

Would you mind posting photos of the whole piece before and after the updated tassel? It would be instructive to me, to see how it changes the whole piece. Awesome!

Susan Elliott said...

So sorry I didn't get to this post until today -- I've been under a pile of leaves as you know.

Well, I think the tassel looks fabulous -- your stitching is just a joy to behold -- every stitch is perfectly placed. Not every stitcher could "pull off" stitching in between the lines and have it look like it was stitched like that to begin with. It's amazing...I would have never known that you hadn't stitched it like that to begin with...which means you're stitching was not only perfect the second time around...but the first group of lines had to be evenly spaced as well. You're a master, my dear.