making their debut...

Fully stitched. In addition to the white stitches on Boro, I sewed on some tiny pieces of darker blue - just dots - which should act like cross-hatching in a drawing, to darken that area. All the edges are darker fabric, whish should give me a nice outline. Hey, it worked in the test! 

Bernie has some red stitches just above his arm. On the actual bodies, his intestines were stitching out:

While I don't want to get too gory, the red stitches are a nod to the reality of the body.

OK, both guys are face down on the white wool (do you remember my first big successful piece, the one with a dress mannequin and 2 sewing machines? That was the back of a coat, this one is the 2 front section of that same coat, sewn together). All that stitching actually shrunk the pieces just a little. The fibers of the cloth get pulled closer together, and I can see that they're not quite as large as the outline I originally sewed.

I covered the empty white area with freezer paper, so I could fold over the edges and have it fit in the oven. Also, I'm hoping that it will prevent any color transfer leaks, like on the last piece.

I have a new piece of equipment here - the white tube standing there. The Dharma Trading Company website sells some big piece of expensive steaming equipment - but then gives you instructions on how to make it if you can't afford to buy it! (I love these guys). Their directions mentioned using a length of stovepipe, which you can get for cheap at Home Depot. So instead of wrapping my wet wool around a heavy, increasing-soggy cardboard tube, I now have a sturdy, lightweight aluminum tube (which I covered in some white cloth I had. It wasn't until I had sewn it on that I saw the lettering woven into the cloth...

And it just fits in the oven!

Which is where the guys are right now.

 For whatever reason, I've become attached to these guys. Maybe because I named them? Or the caring pose, with one arm around the other? 

 It's been 2 hours. It's showtime....

...and fresh from the oven we have.....

...a pretty disappointing result. Most of Bernie's outfit is WAY too light (except around the arm...why?) and in spite of the paper resist the color leaked horribly. But... the shapes are great, the outlines are strong, and Boro's resist stitches worked show up quite nicely.

 So: thank goodness I saved some of the coat fabric so I can patch over the stain. And I can just sew on extra fabric to darken the light spots. Where did the stripes on Boro's head come from???

The freshly-printed disappointing wool, along with my test results and the dark figure (which gave me the colors) and my paper images with all the numbers. Section by section, figuring out what wool I used and what wool I should sew over it now.

Several days later: lots of new woolen pieces sewn on, and ready to go back in the oven. I threw this on the floor to take a picture, just before I cut off the stained side sections.

I wrapped this around the old boggy cardboard tube, instead of my new stove pipe. I'm thinking that maybe the first result was too light because it wasn't wrapped quite tightly enough (it was difficult to wrestle the larger stove pipe). We'll see. More experiments needed. I could sew a whole blanket with all my testing patches...

and 2 hours later we have....

Oh, so much better! See the difference:

Richer darker colors and much more detail:

In the detail photo (above) EVERY STITCH (with the exception of a few loose white threads) is just a print of the thread. The red running stitches, the gray diamond patter, even the pattern of black V's - those stitches have been removed. Al you see is the remaining color transfer.

The loose black threads around the feet - all color transfers. Just evidence that sewing occurred here, folks.

 Now I have to add on replacements for the stained sections that I removed, and finish this up.

An announcement came yesterday that the NJ arts annual is doing a FIBER show this year, and submissions are due Aug 1st. So there will be no posting next week, while I work away at the miserable business end of this (embedding the hanging rods, taking pictures, writing in all the submission forms).

Comments? Questions? Email me at dianesavona@aol.com

PS: In case any of you are wondering why their heads are so small - the chemicals in the bog, which tanned and preserved the skin so well also dissolve the bones (and DNA). So most bog bodies are somewhat deformed. Boro and Bernie have no skulls to give shape to their heads.