At the time I was toying with the idea of series of barnacle shapes shown HERE. I'm laughing at myself reading back on my plan to make it a long term project - it's that alright!
As it was pointed out by The Brat, I have quite a few of these unfinished objects (UFO's) floating around my sewing room.
Opening the box this week, one of the woven pieces jumped out at me and shouted "Dragon!!"
So, with a dragon in mind, I continued free forming it.
First I had to make more cord.
I used thick rug wool, twisted then zig-zagged on the sewing machine until I had a pile like this:
I also covered a piece of aluminium sculpting wire the same way, running a zig-zag over wire is not for the faint hearted but I managed not to break anything.
This covered wire was later sewn under the body to retain the curve shape. I also put a piece across the rear legs.
I inserted a flat glass marble in the head which just shows through the eye sockets.
In retrospect, if I had made this from scratch with a dragon in mind, the head and eyes would have been larger, but this section was already in the old piece of work.
Her name is Cordelia - Cordy for short - what else would you name a dragon made from cord?
At this point I could become very literary and make references to Cordelia mentioned in the Holinshed Chronicles as the daughter of the legendary English King Leir and the influence the chronicles had on Shakespeare's Cordelia in his work "King Lear"
but I'll be honest and tell you the first Cordy who sprang to mind was from Buffy.
Cordy was very hard to photograph, in these next two photos she is side on with her head on the right, looking over her shoulder.
middle and back foot
tail
6 comments:
It puts me in mind of a leafy or weedy sea dragon--very different from a typical mythological terrestrial dragon, but also very beautiful and mysterious. Nicely done!
Love your blog Erica. A technical question - did you lower your feed dogs when zig-zagging the cord or leave them raised? I've just been reading about this. Cordy looks cute from most angles but that close up view of her left hand side makes her look positively dangerous!
She's wonderful. I agree about the sea dragon connection. My first thought was that she resembled one of those beautiful frothy sea horses.
thanks Sue and Mary Ann, you're right she does have a sea dragon look, I hadn't thought of that at first.
I had the feed dogs raised this time with the normal sewing foot, I think it tends to flatten the cord, but the next day I made some more cord using the darning foot with the feed dogs down - just takes a little more fiddling to keep the cord twisted with one hand while you pull it through with the other, but it's easier to go back over any bits that need more stitching using the free method.
Really cool! Love the 3-d fiber groove. Great dragons!
thanks Lorie
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