Certificate Module 4 Chapter 11 ... one more step ...

I have come to enjoy the quiet stitching of my fishing net.  Since deciding to try to spend half an hour each day on this task, it has become an oasis of peace and quiet in my busy life - something to anticipate with pleasure rather than  a chore.

Alternating the stitching with more creative work has also proved a successful way of working, bringing variety to my Distant Stitch work.

I have now finished the fishing net, strengthening the edges with a narrow, close machine zigzag stitch.  I am pleased with how it has turned out: soft and light and it drapes very well.

4.11.FS 5 - completed net

Alongside the stitching, I have also been working on how to compose the piece.  The net on its own will not be strong enough to support the weight of the four little books.  Inspired by a little sketchbook I had made earlier in this module, I decided that it needed a firm background on which to fix the net.

4.11.FS 6 small sketchbook

 I had a canvas, 45cm by 35cm and thought I would try this.  I painted it in bands of colour to represent sky, sea and sand.

4.11.FS 7 painted canvas

Sian had suggested that I try mock-ups of the books to decide on the best size.  I coloured pieces of paper to represent each book and used plastic coloured with oil pastels for a mock up of a message in a bottle for the first verse of the poem.

I laid the whole thing out flat on a table and photographed it from above to give myself an idea of how the completed piece might look.  When I found an arrangement I liked, I photographed it.  I have not yet decided how to display the last line of the poem "for whatever we lose like a you or a me it's always ourselves we find in the sea".  One idea would be to make a piece of seaweed from fabric and stitch the words onto that.

4.11.FS 8 suggested layout

My task now is to make the little books.  My feeling at the moment is that little concertina books might work.  I have not yet decided whether all the books will be the same type of if they will all be different.  I have many decisions and experiments ahead of me, which I anticipate with pleasure.