From the Dark Side...

I finally finished my first foray into darkness. As you may know, I am fearful of the darkness, both real and imaginary. I decided this year would be the year to explore my dark side a little bit. Fabric and fiber have recently taken over my world - beadweaving is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment. My friend Paula has just recently taken over the management of an arts program in a near-by town and was looking for spooky art for a show. I decided it was time to put my fear of things go bump in the night to rest - at least a little.

What came of this is the first mostly fabric necklace which I am temporarily calling "Dark Dreams". I finished it at the ninth hour. My husband was going to deliver it to the gallery for me and he was leaving about 2 minutes ago (if you know what I mean). I was still stitching and also wanted to take some shots before it vanished out the door. My apologies for the quality of the pics - I count on natural light to take good photos and there was none. These have been digitally lightened and my camera doesn't like to focus in low light situations.

"Dark Dreams" is made entirely of fabrics, trims and little goodies from my stash. The ceramic face was, in a past life, part of a gaudy, silvery 80's Christmas ornament. Liberated from the horrid silver lamee and glitter, she became the heroine of this piece. Veiled in vintage black lace, she dreams of death, time and the unknown. The red and black background fabric is a pocket square for which my husband felt no affinity. Saved from the dust bin by the worst of pack-rats (me), it was added to the fabric stash. I burned the edge of the fabric and shredded the lace ruffle surrounding her face - I thought it made the piece a little more "spooky". To finish, it was edged in black lace ruffle and backed with a layer of felt and some cotton knit T-shirt fabric to make it comfy to wear. The nice thing about fabric crafts is that it's easy to sign your pieces. A small fabric tag was added with my name and the year. This is literally the first time I have signed a piece of jewelry!! It's not my "legal" signature - no one can read that - but it does let one know "who" made this necklace and "when". Here are a few more shots - when I get her back from the show I will take better ones. I hope you enjoy "Dark Dreams" :)