Upon a Midnight Dreary is done

I’ve concluded that the recycle piece is done. I’ve decided not to stitch the raven’s head. 

So here’s the final photo.

“Upon a Midnight Dreary” made from plastic bags and thread

As always I’ve learned a lot while working on this piece. The main one is to get the plastics to behave better. Most of them in this piece are from shipments that I have received. They were pretty thick plastics with creases in them. It was hard to get them to lay flat. I suppose that just may be the nature of the beast. 

Next year the theme is Once Upon a Time. I have to start thinking about what to do for that. Any ideas? All I know is that it will be done in color instead of grayscale.

Linking to Nina Marie. https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading.

Chris

The end is near

 I did some hand stitching on the breast of the raven. I’m debating about whether to do the head. I’m leaning toward not doing any stitching on the head.  I used a really dark DMC embroidery floss for the hand stitching. It’s weird how it photographs. Some places you can’t see it at all and other places it looks lighter than it really is. It’s hard to photograph plastic due to reflections. I have not put the piece of glass in yet. That make it even harder to photograph. 

My daughter wants the title, “Upon a Midnight Dreary.” It’s 14 by 14 inches.

“Upon a Midnight Dreary”

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I hope it’s dark enough now!

I ripped out and replaced the stitches on the tail and the wing directly above the tail. I used a light gray micron pen to darken the mid level wing threads. I have a dark gray micron pen, but wasn’t sure if I should go that dark. 

I think I will do some hand stitching on the head and breast as in the sketch below. I will use a darker thread than the light gray in the sketch. I want the thread to add texture and not be super obvious . I have to pick up the embroidery thread from Michael’s on Friday. 

So are the machine stitches dark enough now? I sure hope so!

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Maybe I’m not done

I am stressing and over analyzing as usual. Ever since I put the machine stitches in the Raven I have debated about whether they are too light in value and stick out too much. I have thought about a few things to try….

First, use a fabric marker to darken the threads. 

Second, hand stitch over the machine stitches with hand stitching. That would give the raven more dimension.

Third, rip out the stitches and stitch them again with a darker thread.

Any thoughts?

Here’s the photo again.

Thanks for reading.

Chris