Stitching Shakespeare (Part 2)

I finally finished the stitching on my special Shakespeare project.

This was my first time working on a completely original design, and it was a really valuable experience.  Before working on each section, I would hold up the cloth and examine it, trying to consider what colors and stitches would look best in that section.  At the same time, I also learned that it is fine when a particular choice doesn't work out, because I can always take out the stitches and start over.  Like knitters, stitchers refer to undoing work as "frogging" because you have to "rip it, rip it, rip it."  (Someone on the Frosted Pumpkin forum referred to it as "the frog visited," which sounds like a euphemism for something else . . .)

Adding the embellishments to the peacock was especially fun.  This is a newer trend among embroiders.  You take a piece of fabric with a bolder design on it, then stitch on top of it in a way that either brings greater detail to the design or adds a picture on top of the fabric.  One fiber artist takes traditional French fabric with a pastoral design on it in blue and white, then adds subversive changes--like giving a dairy maid a mohawk and fishnet stockings.  In my case, I added the details to both punch up the colors and give the peacock a more textured effect.  The result has a lot more depth than the fabric design alone.  The embellishments also emphasize the theme of the quote.  As one of my Home Ec friends said, "The quote is about how it is hard to hide your nature, who you really are, and the peacock is flaunting what makes him special."

Outline:  blanket stitch
Head feathers:  french knots
Top wing:  backstitch outline, seed stitch filling
Wing feather:  fern stitch

Tail feathers:  blanket stitch outline, french knot center
Flower:  Algerian stitch

It was surprising to me how liberated I felt stitching my handwriting.  I have never had very attractive cursive or printing.  I used to write in cursive on tests because it was quicker, but I gradually switched to printing because I was worried that professors wouldn't be able to read my cursive.  I got used to the idea that my cursive handwriting was rushed and illegible.  When I wrote the quote for my project, I didn't deliberately change my handwriting, but it looked inherently different because I took my time and was not writing under the pressure of an exam.  I was able to take a part of me that I was always ashamed of and turned it into a beautiful work of art, with its own character and style.

I had to share this because I was so happy to get the stitching done, but the project isn't complete yet! Next time, I will describe my first venture into framing--a step that bring anxiety to many beginning stitchers.

Stitching Shakespeare (Part 1)

Several weeks ago, I finally acted in my first Shakespeare play--Cymbeline.  If you reacted to that sentence by thinking, "That's a Shakespeare play?" you are not alone.  Cymbeline is generally considered to be one of Shakespeare's least-performed works.  It straddles the line between tragedy, comedy, romance, and fantasy.  It has a complex plot with a fair number of holes.  Playwright George Bernard Shaw hated the last scene so much that he wrote his own version.

The play was produced by Fourth Room Theatre, a local theatre group that was founded in the last few years.  We were able to perform it free for the public by getting funds through an Indiegogo campaign, which will hopefully become an annual tradition of free summer theatre in our town.  Our setting was on the outdoor property of a local homeowner, who lives on an old 4-acre farm that is just across the street from the university football stadium.  We built a raked wooden stage and hung Christmas lights from the trees, using the natural features in the space for inspiration.

As a way of emphasizing our natural setting and metaphors in the text, the director's production concept involved every character representing a different type of bird.  Birds were used as the inspiration for costume and acting choices, as well as a visual motif for advertisements.

The young male lead was a bald eagle, the female lead that fakes her death was a phoenix, the evil queen was a raven, the king was a blue heron, and so on.  I was part of a group of supernatural characters ushering the action along, wearing black leggings and white dresses to represent swans.  We would put on other costume pieces when we filled in for smaller roles.  

During one of these scenes, I was a parrot and my scene partner was a peacock.  When she put on her feathered headpiece, I thought about this cloth I had leftover from a beginning sewing class.

I thought about the cloth, and gradually formed the idea for my first original project.  I used fusible webbing to create an appliqué of one of the peacocks.  They had a small amount that I could buy at Home Ec Workshop.  The way that it works is that you iron the fabric onto one side of the webbing so that it almost melts together.  Then I cut out the patch I wanted, peeled paper off of the other side of the webbing, and ironed the patch onto the turquoise fabric.  I put the fabric into the embroidery hoop, then used an ordinary #2 pencil to write out a quote from the show.

When done, the quote will say, "How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature."  This quote was highlighted in the advertising for the show, and it highlight's the director emphasis on the role of fate in the show.  I will also embellish the peacock with decorative stitches.  Once it is finished, I will cut away the excess turquoise fabric and leave about 2 inches of it around.  I can then glue this border of fabric to the embroidery hoop and hang it as is.

At first, I felt weird about preserving my cursive handwriting in backstitch.  In my beginning embroidery class, Codi said that she finds embroidery fascinating because everybody has a different style, "Like handwriting."  I replied, "That worries me.  My handwriting looks like a five-year-old's."  Hopefully, those insecurities will go away when I see the finished product, my imperfect handwriting elevated to a work of art.

I have so many ideas for original pieces I'd like to do.  This seemed like a great first project to try techniques like appliqué, transferring designs, and framing.  It's also a wonderful way to commemorate my return to acting after a long hiatus, and all the lessons I learned.  Well, this wasn't actually the first show I acted in after my hiatus, but I am still trying to figure out what kind of project to do for The Vagina Monologues . . .