Back in 2019 Beth Brennan of Still Life Pond who made the beautiful Tree of Life pennant for I Dream of a World Where Love is the Answer sent me her mother’s exquisitely fine leather gloves with this note. In our e-mail conversation she added, “Ah good! I felt like Cinderella’s stepsister trying to put them on. My mother was impossibly tiny and had elegant taste. I don’t know how much they were worn—not much by the look of them! She was married to my dad in 1940, so they probably date from the late 1930s. You were my first thought for repurposing and I knew you would appreciate the fineness of the leather. But I also absolve you from doing anything at all with them. Set them free if you need to when the time comes.”
The time has come to throw down the gauntlet!
whilst carefully dissecting the seams on the very fine leather I dreamed of merging the two pairs into one pair of starry gloves with contrasting stars as a follow on to Reaching for the Stars
love how the fourchettes with quirks look like birds!
as I explored all the seams and felt the different textures in the leathers I realized these gloves have their own ideas about what each pair wants to be next!
the gloves need to be longer between the thumb hole and fingers for the bigger hands of today & in the width so I cut a 1/2 inch strip from the bottom edge to insert across the knuckles and cut the foredge to increase all the edges with hand stitched button hole lace. I was going to use white silk but have some vintage Silkworm thread that works much better.
last night as I was trembling on the edge of making the first cut, I spoke to my wild artist friend Dotti & she helped me see how I needed to throw all caution to the wind & jump into the stitching so at midnight I did just that! The other challenge was Artsite advising to not share work in process for the Collector’s Choice xmas show on social media this year. I bristled at first, then settled my hackles back down after talking to the director who recognizes this blog as an important part of my process especially with this l-o-n-g Covid lockdown (ongoing here in Sydney since June 26th) I need to communicate what’s going on & with just reading Jude Hill’s latest post and seeing her pocket collaboration revealed I love the magic that happens when minds meet through the ether!
some Cream coloured Cliveas
our gardens are looking spectacular this spring!
It's Crow Time 