hand and lock embroidery project. complete.

I consider myself to be relatively computer savvy, but sometimes I get totally stumped with silly things. Like trying to make a multi-page PDF file the right size to upload onto Issuu. Yeah. So that's why this blog post is occurring today and not this past Monday, when we had our critiques. So voila, an online version of my Hand and Lock embroidery project "lookbook". With the help of my sleep deprived post-call husband's photography skills, I whipped this bad boy up on Sunday.

This was the brief I chose to interpret:

 "Faded summers: Remembered summers and memories of past celebration. Using faded colours and surfaces bleached by the sun, take yourself back to childhood memories on old postcards or old photos of the sea side and family parties. Beach houses, huts and sheds. Vintage street parties, bunting and national flags. Pride. Vintage and loose looks. Light canvas, worn knits, embossed and relief surfaces. Shaded stripes and prints. Relief surfaces and faded brights all should come into play, with textures of worn mesh, old ropes, tattered flags draping and wrinkling, chipped surfaces, rust, large knits and perforations. Faded colours: Pastels, dull pinks, oranges and reds. Greys, coral, lobster, musk. Yellow khaki and beige. Sepia."

I focused on using natural materials, some fabric dyed with golden rod, and only hand embroidery techniques (no machine embroidery).  I really like knitting with natural cotton string (it reminds me of nautical things), so I incorporated that into the epaulettes, the belt, and the knit side panels on the shirt.

It was a fun project. I do wish I'd had more time to play around with other ideas I had, more natural dyeing, and different techniques, but a little thing called the #$%%* Knit Vertical Garden was a little time consuming. But that's ok! It's almost done! And this project is done! On to other projects!