My latest craft project involves old granny embroidered pictures. I've been collecting them for some time now, and have spent hours upon hours of freeing them from their frames. Most of them have been professionally framed, which I think is great in a way as it shows that the crafter has been proud of her work. But it's a pain to remove all the nails.. What hit me when I was pulling away at some nails yesterday, was that here was (probably) an old woman stitching away on her artwork and later it's been handed over to a man (I'm guessing) for framing. The soft fabric and yarn meeting the brutality of the nails and rough tools.
Sometimes I find interesting pieces of old posters or other card board behind the embroideries - the framemakers were good at recycling even 20-30 years ago :-) And other times I might find greetings written on the back of the pictures. 'To so-and-so on your 70th birthday', for instance. Or 'This picture was handed down to me when so-and-so passed away'.
Another thing that caught my eye was the color swatches that's printed on the side of the embroidery canvas (what is the proper word?). It's like information graphics meeting color theory. Great combo of colors too.
1 comment:
i love those little messages, i like when i buy a second-hand book and it has an inscription or a 'this book belongs to...' i always wonder who they were.
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