Building a Branch

 Earlier this year I read an article that showed up on my newsfeed about how to be a successful artist. The article stated that in order to be successful you need to come up with a recognizable style and then just stick to it--no matter what. After thinking about that for about a minute I realized that the article was talking about financial success rather than an artistic success.

When I make a piece I worry a whole lot more about the piece being a successful one rather than my bottom line. If I only used one technique only made tallitot or challah covers or Torah Mantles in one particular style I might be more financially successful but my work would be boring, and I would be bored by the process of making it.

When I had last posted about Benjy's Torah mantle I had just finished adding in the color with the oil paint sticks. As I types that last sentence I wasn't sure which verb to use. I use a paintbrush to take color from the surface oil paint stick and then paint it on the velvet. Perhaps it is painted.

The leaves looked nice but not quite finished. I thought that if I added a line of thin zig-zag stitching around the perimeter of each leaf that might do the trick.

Adding the zig-zag stitch was good, but it didn't quite do the trick. 

I stitched in the veins in a dark blue thread, there happened to be a yellow embroidery thread in the bobbin and you can see a teeny bit of the yellow at each stitch. if you look carefully at the photo above you will see that the veining was not added to the top leaf in the photo.

From a distance, you probably can't pick out the stitching, but you will notice that the leaves just look better.

Then I realized that the stem needed a bit of help. I stitched long rows of stitches, darker at the edges and brighter towards the center to give the stem a bit of dimension.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself because drawing isn't my strong suit.

The lettering for the dedication is supposed to sit on top of the stem of the branch. I had to figure out how to draft the lettering so it would sit in the right place and be properly proportioned. I needed to have an exact copy of the branch shape.

My brain ticked through possible ways to create a copy of the branch shape. Tick tick tick--- I remembered an ancient method of design transfer. I put a piece of paper under the mantle and then pricked holes along the outline of the branch. If I were living in ancient Rome I would have rubbed charcoal dust through the holes and been left with a line drawing of the branch.

After I was done I penciled in the shape.

Then I went over the lines with a marker.

I put tracing paper over the branch outline and then practiced my lettering until I was happy with it.

I placed the lettered tracing paper over the branch and taped it into place.

I then taped a piece of ironed cotton batiste over the letters pained on the tracing paper

and then I traced the letters onto the batiste.

After I baste the cotton batiste to the mantle I will begin embroidering the letters. I actually practiced on a scrap piece of velvet and have ideas about technique.

This kind of fine-tuning and problem solving gives me joy. I also think that it gives my work a kind of energy and life that it might not have if my work only had one look, or if I had only one path to problem-solving.

I am grateful for each and every craft and needlework book I read during my childhood years. I read hundreds and actually did remarkably little needlework during those years. Hundreds of sets of directions for hundreds of different needlework tasks are all shoved into the cluttered attic of my brain. Remarkably those ideas appear when needed as if my brain were filled with tidily organized file cabinets instead of the cluttered mess that my brain actually is.

During my next post about the mantle, I will share a tiny epiphany I had about embroidery.