Evolution of a Haversack Project
Changing my mind in the middle of something is not easy. Of course there are the small tweaks and adjustments to any design concept but a major change? No, it’s really hard because it’s like giving up and admitting some sort of defeat. Like, “I can’t make this work, but it worked just fine in my head…”
So, I had this Haversack. It was part of the largess gift from Skeggie and Tasia at Hocktide Emprise last year. It had a very nice appliqué/embroidered panther from the Bactrian hoard, but seemed very unfinished with raw edges on the strap and no lining or other embellishment. When I shared out the thank you gift with the crew that put the event together, I was hoping someone would take the bag because I could already feel my artistic senses itching to play with the wool and felt and see if I could “finish it”. No one claimed it. I resisted for a long time because it also was pushing strongly against my artistic ethics to alter someone else’s work. I have no clue who did the original work on it, so I couldn’t contact them and seek permission, even though a part of me said, “hey it’s your bag now, you can do what you want.” I had some projects on the board that I didn’t quite feel comfortable altering and using it for either for the same reasons, and I didn’t know who to share the credit with. Nothing felt “right.”
Finally, as I ran out of good fulled wool fabric to make Haversacks out of for our own largess project, the desire to work with the quality fabric I so wanted to use but couldn’t get my hands on won out. I decided I would try and add to it but maintain the integrity of the original motif. Harder than you might think. The piece needed color, but the central motif was in a neutral gray and ecru. The primary motifs of this particular cultural motif are flowing, but the secondary tend to be rather geometric.
It became a balancing act. I kept liking what I added. I think mostly for the sake of just working with the fabric, felt and color. Yet, at the same time I became increasingly dissatisfied with the overall piece. I had a chance for the first time to felt on the strap as it was a single unfinished layer of fabric. I started there. Then I had a donation from Briaroak of yarn Kumihimo lanyards in blue and white. It seemed like a perfect application of these lanyards. The lanyards then dictated the direction of the work and that I should make it a gift to the soon to be new Summits Equestrian Champion as a personal token to celebrate the first ever Outrider of the Summits.
I worked and kept feeling like the balance was just wrong, and had to keep rationalizing that it was okay to change someone else’s work even though I was not touching their portion of the bag technically speaking. Slim ground to base a rationalization on, no wonder it didn’t sit well. I decided that it was mostly finished except for the lining and let it sit on the back of the sofa for awhile. Sometimes opened up so I could see it as I walked by and sometimes folded over so I didn’t have to look at it. Like I said, I was uncomfortable with several aspects. I mean, what if I had made a scroll for someone and they decided it was unfinished and started drawing and painting all over it? I would be crushed if I found out.
So, here it sat for some time.
Finally, I decided that it was just not working for me. The intended use helped me a lot. Since it was going to be an equestrian prize it really needed the central motif to be a horse of some sort. There are several horse designs that twist in a similar fashion and I looked long and hard trying to decide if I could re-work the embroidery and turn the panther, into a horse.
Somehow the thought of undoing someone else’s embroider was just too anathema for me. I decided that I would simply remove the appliqué and put in my own central motif, and re-use the panther in a different project. Still a little uncomfortable, but I could live with it.
Then it was a matter of deciding what would fit and what would work in terms of horse figures. In the end, I went for a cultural meatball. That’s where you take aspects of different or distantly related cultural motifs and force them together hoping that they will bind.
I used the silhouette of the Egyptian horse and then combined aspects of all the others. I guess I’m still stuck in Scythian mode, in part because that was the original motif on the bag and also because, I’m just not done exploring and it’s where my creative mind goes first.
I’m very pleased with the way it came out. It seems to me at least to be a much better design and synthesis of motif and materials. I changed my process a little by the time I was working on the horse. The legs were so small and delicate that I didn’t want to risk pulling the felt apart by tacking it down as usual, so I felted it all on directly without appliqué first. Yes, there was the evil couching but I find I mind it less when I go with the contrasting thread to sew it down. I also used a simple split stitch embroidery for the black outline and small areas of fill in the mane and tail.
In case you’re thinking that the horse looks a little Celtic, I assure you the influence is not Celtic. I’m sure you can see where I got the mane and how I simply reversed it’s direction and also applied it to the tail. If you look closely at the same figure, you will see the (simplified) design aspect of the interior fill areas as well.
I lined it in the last of the blue polished cotton that I had and finished the strap with a nice black linen that was part of the scrappage donated by Briaroak. Now if I only had a source for the black fulled wool.
I tend to work on no less than 5 projects at a time. Those will follow.