craftgrrl | (no subject) (Reply)

Hi everyone! It has been quite a while since I posted here. I've had a lot happening in my life, including a divorce and moving from South Florida to San Francisco Bay Area. Phew. I'm all settled down and re-claiming my life again...and finally taking time out to craft for myself :)

A few weeks or so ago I was helping my boyfriend go through his closet sorting out clothing for keeping, donation or tossing. We came across a rather beaten up black t-shirt with a crinkly looking Daruma print on it. It was about to go in the toss/donate pile when I thought about using it to create a wall hanging - so my boyfriend gave it to me. I cut the Daruma out and put it aside until I had time to work with it.

I had ideas of using some of the vintage indigo fabric I had to create a wall hanging and had a perfect long, but narrow piece of indigo with raw edges that would work well. I was determined to not use my sewing machine and hand sew the entire thing to keep with the hand crafted and rustic feel. I cut the fabric into three even pieces and spent a few hours carefully hand stitching it making sure the raw edges showed. By the time I was finished - my hands were dark blue from the indigo dye - so I decided to soak the body of the fabric overnight to try and remove some of the excess dye. In the morning - the water was pitch er, blue... and when the fabric dried - it dried with a fantastic crinkled texture. I decided to keep the writing on the back of the wall hanging - mainly because I had no idea what it said - but also I felt the solid white of it at the front would detract from the Daruma too much.

I then hand stitched the Daruma on and the asanoha fabric at the top and voila! I'm quite happy with how it turned out and I especially love the fact that it is not 100% perfect. I fought against my natural urges to make sure I measured everything so it was completely even and worked with flow of the fabric instead. I also like the subtle hint of the writing showing through to the front. It now hangs above one of the windows in our house.

Another View

I think this is quite possibly the first thing I've actually sat down and sewn just for myself - rather than for everybody else and I'm glad I spent the many hours hand sewing it. I put a lot of love into making this, and I think it shows.

Cross posted to