Louise Smith

Thought I’d show you some lint I’m preparing for a new cherry blossom picture.  I did the last one in stitching but I’ve been wanting to try it in lint.  I think it will have a softer look, which seems right for the subject.  There will be some stitching of the branches though.

I’ve already painted a sky-blue background and glued down a few blossoms “in draft” as pictured, to see if my colours look okay.   Then I chopped up some strands of thread very finely (taking care not to sneeze : )).   Next comes the gluing…currently I’m sticking lumps of lint down onto blobs of acid-free tacky glue, unless I run out of patience and get some spray version of the glue.

Now let’s see which comes first, the actual season of spring, or the finished piece!

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My latest piece, depicting the skyline of Vancouver, Canada.  This one’s a whopping 8 x 8 inches : )  I was able to go larger as it involved hand sewing only.  Machine sewing limits the size of the hoop you can use, because it has to be a small enough diameter for the edge of the hoop not to bang against the arm of the machine while you sew.   (I found this out the hard way).

My previous post goes into how I made the reflections.

Then once the background painting was done, I got to create whole tower blocks out of thread.  I felt like a sort of creative Godzilla!

I used a few different shades of dark thread for buildings and then lots of pale colours in shiny, glittery, or high-sheen threads for the lights (that’s the Shine in Rain and Shine, unfortunately impossible for the camera to pick up).

I had to remind myself to sew in straight lines, which helps create the effect of straight-edged  buildings and windows – just when I’ve gotten used to deliberately curving my lines to make them look more natural.

By the way, Vancouver is loaded with mountains but they are, as they say in all the best Christmas pantomimes, behind you.  This view is from Lonsdale Quay Market on the North Shore.