My work entitled 20216 stitches, 50 threads in 28 pieces has been accepted into ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan! I will be exhibiting at the Riverview Center (678 Front Ave.) between September 22 – October 10, 2010. The best part? The $250,000 grand prize is awarded to the artist who gets the most votes from viewers. So if you happen to be in Grand Rapids, find this piece and vote for it!
It clearly took me more than a week to finish this second set, and I’ve missed the deadline for February Fun-A-Day by a long shot, so continuing to think of these as daily or weekly assignments is nothing more than an arbitrary designation of sets. In any case, I’m going to finish up the tiles and figure out something else to do with them, perhaps offer them for trades. I’m almost done with the third set of seven.
Artist and designer Alex Merto used a cross-stitch aesthetic to create a beautiful window display for the Tools For a Living Store in Soho, New York.
looking out from the inside
Visit Alex’s website for more images.
I’m a couple of days behind, but I think I can keep up this pace. Each tile is about an inch and a half square.
I knew the colors in the sky were going to be a bit odd, but I’m very happy with it so far. The balloons are going to look great. Individually, the little tiles of sky really look like tiny topographical maps. I may do trades with these tiles after the exhibition.
I’m going to attempt Fun-A-Day this month. February will be busy, and attempting completion of a 19-stitch-square each day doesn’t sound too bad. The math, though, reveals that it will really be over 700 stitches per day.
I’ve got some little tiles that are just over an inch square that I’ve been schlepping around with me for years, uncertain what to do with them. I’m going to mount tiny modules that will make up the larger pattern when assembled. I scaled the image so it is made up of 28 equal-sized (19-stitch square) portions.
This is the image I’ll be working on:
I finished this a couple of months ago, but just got around to scanning.
Details:
And some details:
I’m still working on this large street scene; I’m hoping to have it finished in a couple of months. This is a Photobooth picture that leaves much to be desired in terms of detail. One thing that’s evident from this picture is that I’m trying different methods to finish this one.
Usually, I work by color. I find all the stitches with a particular thread throughout the pattern and I complete one color before moving on to another. That’s how I started this one, but it is simply too large (9 in x 12 in) to reasonably count accurately.
So, I switched tactics. I thought that I could stitch the traffic cone in its entirety. My pattern is comprised of four pages, and parts of the cone are on all four pages, meaning I was shuffling around a lot. I branched out from the cone to the entire last (and smallest) page – what corresponds to the lower right corner – and tried to complete that page completely. I got pretty close. Then I also completed all of the black on the right, just to have it out of the way.
My most recent tactic is evident in the mid-right bottom of the fabric. Complete a 10 x 10 stitch block in its entirety before moving on. I did two in about an hour (minus one color that I didn’t find at the store the last time I went). Though this method isn’t necessarily my favorite way to work, I think it’s the most safe for a project of this size. It will keep me from any further skipping of columns, which I’ve already done in one spot.
It also makes it look like significant progress is being made whereas the middle part, where I was still going through color-by-color, just looks like a haphazard mess.
I made this pattern a while ago, so I don’t remember why I wanted it to be so large. After this, though, no more large needlepoint. I’d like to standardize around 5 x 7 or 6 x 9. Those are reasonable sizes that can be completed in 3 months or so.
I sent off the postcard yesterday, but don’t have much confidence in the post office on campus for some reason. I’m sure the park will be bombarded with entries, but I really want to make sure they received it.
Here are some details:
