In Her Hands

It has taken awhile, but I have finished the third felt vessel. It is too late for it to go into the library exhibit. That’s OK. There will be other shows where it will work. In fact the upcoming fiber art show at the Bluebonnet Swamp has the theme of “Metamorphosis.” Since the felt part is an egg shape, it fits.

I had left the bottom of the egg shape round as I was planning to create some kind of base for it. The hard part was deciding how the base should look. So many of my ideas were quickly discarded. Burton then made the wonderful suggestion of hands. I loved it.

I have not only Burton, but my friend Lisa to thank for inspiration. As I was working on the hands, she asked if they would be embroidered like my Little Blue Goat. I hadn’t yet given it any thought, but realized right away that they should indeed be embroidered.

Continuing on with pictures in the round.

The Lotus is a traditional henna design for hands.

It took several tries to get the fingernails just right. They are outlined and then satin stitched with Splendor 12-ply strandable silk. The henna designs are Trebizond silk.

I made the hands just like I do on my dolls, only much bigger. These are slightly larger than life size. They are made of silk dupioni and have a wire armature in each finger.

The secret to its balance is the 1″ nut buried in the wrist of each hand. The wire armature fits inside the hole and the nut is weighty enough to assure that the center of gravity is over the base.