New Patch: Foursquare Merit Badge

Petrapiece by Hoonie Feltham

Originally uploaded by Karnataka10

“This is a piece I made in 2007 and exhibited in an Art Show in Oxford, England that year.
It reflects my response to a visit to the World Heritage site of Petra in Jordan. Petra was built by the Nabbateans around 2000 years ago in a long, deep gorge in a mountain range. The buildings are shallow, mainly one room deep, carved into the sandstone rock face. People may remember the scene of an extraordinary building in Raiders of the Lost Arc. That is the main building facing you as you walk down the ‘siq’ (gorge).
2000 years has caused the sandstone to weather into highly colourful lines of pinks and purples which I have tried to replicate in my piece.
The embroidery of the weathered sandstone is placed between two pieces of dupion silk onto which I have machine embroidered the ziggurat shapes carved onto the faces of most of the buildings in Petra.
The piece sold from that exhibition.”

–Hoonie Feltham

Before Breakfast: A Merit Badge Inspired by Lynda Barry

I stitched this patch before breakfast this morning. I’m reading Lynda Barry‘s What It Is.

Melinda Barta launches melindabarta.com

Melinda Barta decided to launch her new web site to coincide with the publication of her latest book, Custom Cool Jewelry. I’m hoping to get back the copy I loaned to my sister in San Diego; in the meantime, I’d like to recommend my favorite parts of the site:

Melinda’s Musings

This blog dates back to 2005, making it ancient by web standards, but who said I was keeping up with anything? I just discovered Melinda’s Musings, a blog that accompanied the publication of Melinda’s first book, Hip to Stitch. I’ve been enjoying my copy of the book for several years now, with its original, easy-to-follow projects that are “crafty chic.” Nested in MM are:

CraftSanity: podcasts; and where I read about postedstitches, where two quilters hold a monthly conversation. I had a similar fiber art pen pal idea during my design school days. I sent out a bunch of cloths with an inch or so of my handstitching, asking friends to add something and send back. Unfortunately, of the four embroidered cloths I sent out only one came back and then I started grad school and all hell broke loose so the idea got scrapped. I still think it’s a great idea.

Also: Melinda has a link on her friends page to Renie Breskin Adams’ web site and blog. I’ve loved and admired Renie for years and took a course at Penland from her in 1998. Renie is the Queen of the Detached Buttonhole Stitch, and a Master Embroiderer. Looking at Renie’s blog and cartoons brought back memories of her delightful silliness. And like the Dalai Lama, she seemed ready at any moment to break into hysterical giggling. I’m glad that R has brought her whacky whimsy to the web.

Below: a detail from the narrative embroidery I worked on in the course at Penland: