reinventing the wheel

I've been thinking a lot about sheers lately. Or semi-sheers. And the look of them with light behind them--which means an abandonment of batting, maybe even of more than one layer. Not on every piece, but some.

But the problem with this is the seams. Hiding ravelly edges, mainly. There's always techniques like the flat fell seam, or French seam. I've been looking at pojagi, but most of the pictures are full shots, no details of the actual seams. And many of the people using these techniques seem to want to make the seam not noticeable.

I want to celebrate the seam, have it become part of the art and texture of the piece. So I've been playing around with scraps, seeing what I can do--reinventing the wheel because I can't find instructions on building one myself.



This one involves a sheer between two silk pieces, done on the machine with an overcast stitch and a straight stitch--kind of what I think a French seam is, but since I don't know tailoring, don't really know. It's ok. Gets the job done. Need to work on tension (might have had the wrong needle). But meh.

Here's a couple of views of a hand done piece, front and back:




Hastily done, and fairly irregular. I know I could even out the stitching, go after that perfect hand made stitch that mimics machine stitching and confuses the viewer as to the tool used. But even though some may think it sloppy, or a sign of bad construction, I enjoy the unevenness, the obvious hand of the artist, varying the stich, celebrating the seam.

I think I could do something with this.

That is all.