Thursday, August 2, 2012

Thread-Etude

Although I seriously lack the musical genius of Chopin, I am currently caught up in a practice which he perfected, the etude, whereby technique or technical conundrums were explored through focused compositions. Essentially, these were explorations meant for technical study, not intended to be anything more. I love this practice and have immersed myself in my own set of etudes recently.

My etudes center upon the technical aspects of thread crochet. Those who know me, know that I have a penchant for skinny threads worked with teensy steel hooks. I have always found something very intriguing about how such an ordinary material, cotton thread, can be transformed into works of wonder such as lace, doilies (for which I also have a penchant) and images created from a simple series of blocks, my beloved filet crochet. At any rate, thread, experimentation and technique go hand in hand for me. Thus, I am in the midst of a thread-etude.


Pictured above is my favorite crochet space: the coffee table that sits in front of my sofa. Here you can see the current thread-etudes that I am working on: thready flowers and a feather. Incidentally, the feathers qualify as an etude because I was exploring the technical aspects of thread and how its properties could represent an organic form. Initially, I had no intention for the feather's ultimate use. I was just having fun.

By the way, are you guys digging my Jesus mug??? Ahhh, I digress.


In addition to having fun making them, the thready flowers have become a way for me to explore motifs and how they fit together. Basically, I've become obsessed with motifs. We can blame this on my woven projects (i.e., the now ubiquitous and motif heavy diamond shawl) or we can just say that I have the creative attention span of a gnat as I am always searching for some unfamiliar technique to try and embrace. Whatever the characterization, I am completely cracked out on thread right now. In fact, I may need to place an order for some more DMC right away!