Taking risks with things I’ve made is one thing but taking risks with someone else’s is something else.
I’m currently running a community sewing project. One of my self imposed rules is that anything and everything produced by members of the community can be incorporated into the final pieces. Experience of running this sort of project over the years has shown me that this is an entirely reasonable objective as long as I have latitude to re-colour or over-embroider if necessary.
But recently I was presented with a major challenge. A lovely 90+ year old had produced an item totally at odds with everything else. Compositionally, colour wise, texturally and in every way you could think of, it was not working with anything else. But it had been made with loving care and somehow had to be included.
I had been staring at it during the last few meetings of the group, waiting for inspiration to strike. All the usual methods of over-stitching, re-colouring and embellishing had failed to work any magic.
Last night I realized there was but one solution. Cut it up into bits and recompose as pieces of appliqué. Eeek.
No going back with this one. Biggest risk of the week. Biggest risk of the month. Cutting up someone else’s work to the greater good of the project.
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