May: Feeling Skinny 1

Welcome to May! As I mentioned last week, the next few months are going to be more abstract than the first four months of this year's project. The focus will be on line and shape mostly. It's funny how it timed out; my docent training class is moving into Modernism and that shift in art is defined by a focus on line, form, shape, and color. I planned this out way before I knew our syllabus, but am pleased with the convergence.

This month's piece is called "Feeling Skinny." A couple of things influenced this month's piece and theme:

• When I turned 30 (2009), I did something new each month. May was the month I wore a skirt or dress every day since I didn't wear skirts and dresses very often. It was also the coldest May on record in the DC area in a decade (or something). Despite the weather, I accomplished my goal and became a person who loves skirts and dresses. This experiment made me think differently about how I approached clothing and fashion. It made me think more about how I wanted to dress. The same year, my mom gave me a pair of purple skinny jeans. They were one of my favorite pairs of pants I've ever owned. 
• Also in my 30s, I finally embraced dressing for myself. I've had this conversation with a few people recently. I love fashion, but I also hate it. A lot of my hate comes from how much damage the industry does to self-confidence and normalizing horrible versions of femininity and reinforcing gender norms and stereotypes. What it meant to me was that I embraced my love of patterns (stripes and polka dots), whimsical prints, bright colors, and not wearing baggy clothes because I'm a bigger person. 
• I recently watched the documentary Pretty Baby on Hulu. If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend you do. It's about Brooke Shields and a large portion of the film focuses on her rise to stardom and the way in which she was sexualized as a small child and teenager. There's a lot to discuss, but one of the things that stood out for me was a comment by a feminist author about how second wave feminism had this horrible impact on how young girls and women were viewed by men. Basically, women who embraced feminism didn't allow men to sexualize them, so men moved on to young girls. I was a child in the 80s and a teen in the 90s and I can see this so much as I look back on my childhood and teen years. The fashion, the dynamics of male and female characters in shows and movies, ad campaigns...it's so sad and gross.

Why these pants? I bought these pants at a time in my life where I was probably the skinniest I'd been since college. I'm never going to be skinny, but I had started working out and was eating better and generally taking better care of myself. These pants, I also bought them in black, gray, and pink, were a symbol. They were a size smaller than I had been wearing. They were in line with the fashion at the time - skinny cut, cropped. They were a bright color. These were things I had been told to never wear because I'm fat or big or whatever. These pants were one more thing I did in my 30s to truly embrace how I wanted to dress and how I wanted to express myself. I love these pants. They make me feel like a character in a John Waters movie and I mean that in the best way possible.

I also know these pants don't fit me anymore and are not particularly fashionable. The color is still amazing, but even if they did fit, I wouldn't wear them now. I still like skinny pants, something I never thought I'd say out loud, but these aren't the right ones for me anymore. I did donate the other colors, but I kept these. And now they're the fabric for May's stitch journal and I'm going to stitch all over them. 

My goal with this month's stitch journal is to let the stitches take me wherever they want to go. I plan to use back stitch and chain stitch mostly and hope to cover as much of the front of the pants as I can in the 31 days of May. I started with the back stitch for this week and will pick up the chain stitch next week. Then we'll see where the month takes us. Maybe some variations on each stitch (there are lots). Maybe some combos. There is no plan for this month except to give myself at least 15 minutes each day with the piece (it can be more or less depending on my schedule). I selected colors from my Sublime Stitching thread collection. The color palette looks better in person.

Here's this week's recap:

May 1

May 2

May 3

May 4

May 5

May 6

Here's the full week:

Next week, I'll work on the other leg. I'll go back and forth between the two for the rest of the month. 

New Series - Iconic

I've made a lot of progress on my series, Iconic, this week as well. I finished #2-4 and #5 will be done this weekend. I bought some additional metallic thread from Sulky since they have more color options than the DMC Diamant line. The Sulky thread is a little thinner, so I'm trying out double strands. It's not as easy to work with as the Diamant, but still works well on paper. 

Iconic #2

Iconic #3 - I'm making this one on fabric too. 

Iconic 4 and Iconic 5

WIP - Iconic 5

I also bought a fun kit from Sublime Stitching and it arrived this week. It's Coraline themed! I love this movie and am excited to get started on making Coraline stuff. And yes, I plan on watching Coraline this weekend.