New Project--Tribal Butterfly

Okay, I'm in a better mood today. I'm checking out some possibilities with galleries and shows to market and sell my felt and rug designs. I'll see what comes from my inquires.

To make me feel better I started a new project. One of the designs that didn't sell was a Tribal Butterfly that was based on some tattoo flash I had made up a couple of years ago when I was thinking about being a tattoo artist and was apprendicing under an old biker tattoo artist for a while. I have a number of tattoos on my body, mainly ones I have done myself and I think all my children (adults) have at least one tattoo somewhere on them. To us it's art, abet a bit permanent but still art. I get some weird looks from ladies my own age locally because I guess respectable ladies don't have tattoos but to me is was another medium to try my art on.



Back to hooking-- The design is 34 x 37 with a 4" border surrounding the 28 1/2 x 30 inner design. The border is blank right now until I figure out what I'm going to do in it. Maybe either more tribal swirls or writing something about butterflies, the spirit and freedom they symbolize to me. Butterflies to me are comfort, joy, freedom, imagination let free, and a bunch of other happy feelings, doing one tribal style is adding the primitive to it, the primal, spirit of the forest, nature and just life in general to the mix of emotions I feel from the design.



It is on burlap (sorry that's all I had to work on) and I'll be hooking it in sheep fleece again. I'm continuing my experiments in it to in preparation for writing my article on hooking with fleece for Rug Hooking magazine. I still have to finish the designs for the article and submit them to my editor for final approval before beginning hooking. I still have to line up fiber for making kits for the article designs and am working on that through emails and calling.

For this design I am using some of the fibers I had carded and bagged for my show. While putting bags together I discovered I had bunches of blues dyed up, way more than I realized that I had after I went through all my different bins and tubs of fiber. These are sky blues, lavenders to medium blues and purples with touches of pinks mixed in. The main body of the butterfly will be in deep purples with touches of bright medium blues. The background will be in different shades of the blues and lavenders from very pale ice blue to a medium lavender color towards the edges. I'm using fine and primitive hooks on this. I do wish it could have been on linen or rug warp but can't buy any right now.




I still have to finish a felted vest made entirely from white mountain Welsh and Badgerface sheep. It needs a bit more wet felting and then I'll be able to add a lining. I also have the round felted rug to finish with a backing and embroidery. I had also found a unfinished dragon purse too to do in my going through my supplies last week. The dragon design is getting put on the piece of blue felt I did last month.