The Starlight Night by Gerald Manley Hopkins is full of imagery. I did have to look up a couple of words. "Abeles" are silver birch or aspens. Now, they are very stitchable, but I didn't.
The whole meaning that the poem said to me was about a wonderful starlit night where the eyes of elves are sparkling in a dark wood. The scene seems to be a barn near a farm cottage surrounded perhaps by an orchard where there are trees in blossom in March; as they now are.
I believe that that this poem speaks to me of the nativity in a stable and I am sure that I have read, because of the astrology, calendar changes etc - the birth of Christ may have been in March.
So, this resolved sample had for me, to refer to the nativity, the woods, the blossoms and the stars.
I wrote my plan on which I very roughly sketched my ideas and which elements they referred to.
Plan from my notebook
and I selected the range of fabrics that would work with the plan. More were added later and some weren't used.
Fabric selection for the sample.
The base layer was a purple/dark blue chiffon which was Bondawebbed to pelmet Vilene. As this was a starry night, I thought that the moon would also be visible but didn't want it to be too bright, so from a pale satin, I cut a circle to depict the moon and Bondawebbed this to the chiffon base.
I love Russian iconography so printed an icon to paper. I cut away the halos and replaced them with a piece of gold kid leather in the same shape.
The madonna and child were then covered with gold satin and a layer of gold organza
Then some dark blue and gold Angelina were fused and placed where my stars would be, to form a sparkly base. The moon was shrouded with 'clouds' made from organza
These basic layers were then all covered with a navy blue net and a metallic dark blue sheer
The foundation of the piece.
I slipped a piece of copper coloured organza over the icon, to depict the barn then I'm afraid, I really got into stitching the piece and forgot to take photographs until I'd completed it. Gold leaf 'stars' were also sprinkled around the Angelina top left.
In my notebook I had written, "Star" - pin tucked net with layers of Angelina and organza and gathered or ruffled into a circle and then irregular cuts to form a rough star-shape. Colour ? red/gold.
I stitched down the top layer and burnt through to the icon exposing the face and the leather halos. Some gold trilobal nylon was stitched into burnt holes to appear like the radiating light from the Madonna and Child.
Layers of organza and net were cut or burnt through to expose the layers below and stitched down around the burns and cuts with granite and vermicelli stitching. Some snippets of a pink metallic fabric were stitched under an added layer or green blue organza to depict the 'March blooms".
Also from the notebook, using words from the poem, I wrote, " down in the dimwoods", and decided to make a tree from crumpled brown paper and fused little torn up pieces of Bondaweb to it's surface, heated it to distort, allowed it to cool and pasted with PVA glue then sprinkled with gold and silver embossing powder and heated, then gilded when cooled with gilding wax to add light sparkles, "the diamond delves - elves' eyes". This was made, the first time that I had tried the technique. I stitched the tree to the piece and covered it with green/blue chiffon which was stitched on and then cut in places with a soldering iron to exposed the gilded bark.
I made the star by first pin-tucking gold metallic net with twin needles and metallic threads. The stitching looped in an interesting way and I decided to continue as it didn't detract from the base layer of the star that I was making. A second layer of dark blue and gold fused Angelina was cut into 'star' shapes and stitched on top of the net which had been gathered and stitched onto the base. Then two layers of gold/red organza were cut into a 'star' and held to seal their edges over a flame and then offset against each other and stitched on top of the lower two layers.
I felt that the moon was too dim but didn't want to risk cutting or burning through to see if it would look better if more visible as this was an action that I couldn't reverse, so instead, using a silver metallic thread outlined the moon to make it more visible.
I then edged the piece with a machine 'blanket' stitch. All the stitching was done with metallic threads.
The finished resolved sample
On refection. I know that I am very literal and find it hard to be totally abstract but am pleased with this piece. My husband says that the tree looks like a penguin - ever helpful!!
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