My corpse is home!

A corpse? Why, yes, it is. Several months ago Arlee arranged round three of our Exquisite Corpse challenge and my piece has come home. I love it! (To explain...each of the groups had 5 participants. The originator of the piece did the head and then covered all but 1/2" at the bottom. It was mailed on to the next member. They then added the shoulders and upper chest, again covering what they did and leaving only 1/2" visible. And so on, until all the members had completed their section. Then the piece was mailed back to the owner to be unveiled). The above picture shows the entire piece.
This is the head that I began the piece with. The snakes are trapunto-ed and some are dimensional.
Robin worked on the shoulders.
Kaite did the mid-section.
Miles did the hips/upper legs area.
And finally, Arlee finished the piece by doing the lower legs & feet.

I'm thrilled with the end result. Thank you so much to all that were in my group, and especially Arlee for being the 'force' behind the project.

***Edited to add: Each section on the piece is 'finished' at 7" square. The entire piece (excluding the outside seam allowances) measures 7" x 35".

VERY exquisite corpse!

My Exquisite Corpse is home and I am totally thrilled with it! Thank you so much to Linda, Deirdre, Leslie, Corryna and Gail for their beautiful work, and to Arlee for arranging for us to have absolutely too much fun.

Firstly, a bit of explanation....in this 'round' there were 6 participants. The originator (owner) of the piece drew a picture/pattern on fabric and then divided it into six sections - one for each person participating. Then we worked one section of our design and covered it up (both front and back) so absolutely no clues were showing as to what we did. It travelled to the next person in the group where they completed another section of the design, again covering their work totally. In some cases it was fairly evident what the actual design was, but some were quite mysterious. After the piece had 'visited' all the group members, it was returned home to the owner who then uncovered all the areas to reveal the completed design. Every single one of these that have returned home so far ARE exquisite and now we're poised to begin another series, with some new players added to the mix.

This photo (altho blurry...sorry) shows how my piece started out.... This is the completed piece. Isn't it gorgeous? I'm not an artist who is very good at drawing anything, so my design was quite simplistic. I was blown away that two particpants put dragonflies on their areas. How cool is that?

This is a close-up of the area that Linda worked on. There are tons of beads (I don't come by my 'magpie' nickname without having a love for sparkly things!). I love the colours she used and there's such a variety of beads. Lovely!!

Next is the area Deirdre worked on. More beads and beautiful fabrics (maybe hand-dyed??) No, Arlee you may not have that fabric on the outside...it's mine, mine, all mine!!

This part is by Gail. I love the colours in this area. The darker area looks like it's felted, but I'm not sure - the colour is beautiful. The orange looks to be a fabric she created with all sorts of interesting 'bits' and there's beads! See the dragonflies?

Next is Corryna. She has stamped some pretty dragonflies AND if you look r-e-a-l close you can see the most exquisite wee stitched dragonflies. I'm not sure the picture will even begin to do them justice. There's more 'sparklies' on this part too.

Last, but certainly not least, is what Leslie did. This area looks very crazy-quilt-ish (which is one of my favourite art forms). She highlighted the flowers with beads, silk ribbon, and gold stitching.

THANK YOU so much ladies for all your hard work! I will treasure this and display it prominently in my studio.

Corpses Arrived!!!

I'm so excited with my mail today!! I received a parcel from Emmy which included Betty's Exquisite Corpse from Round 1 and mine all completed!! I could hardly wait to uncover each section, but I also wanted to take time to savour each and every part. A massive understatement would be to say I'm thrilled!

*IF* these pictures post in the order I want them to (always a challenge with me!!), the first one should be of the whole piece. I tried to take pictures outside in the sun but all the shiny bits reflected too much so I ended up using my studio lighting which obviously isn't the best either. Please click on each picture to see more detail!

My theme was 'Escape' and my colours were primarily black and purple, with whatever the artist wanted to add beyond that. The first picture you see should be of the bottom left corner which was done by Michelle. Lots and lots of wonderful texture and words and also one of her beautiful bottle caps. I wish everybody could touch this one!

The second picture is of the bottom right and is by Ginger. Again, lots of texture and wonderful machine stitching...be sure you notice the eyes peeping out from the corner. That has to be tricky to do using a machine!!

Third is middle left and is by Reta. What a great escape this would be- a lovely bathtub with a glass of wine and lots and lots of bubbles. Ahhh....heaven on earth!

Next is by Emmy (middle right) and has absolutely amazing texture too. I think she's done lots of burning of the different layers. Wish you could feel this one too!!

The upper left is by Betty and is the most amazingly detailed labrynth, complete with a silver wizard charm. How cool is that?! An incredible amount of hand stitching went into this.

Lastly, on the upper right is the part I did to begin it all. We were playing with an embellisher that my friend has and this was pretty much my test piece to see how the machine worked. The face was another test piece when we tried out angelina fibres with rubber stamps & an iron. She just seemed to 'fit' somehow. The actual 'Escape' bit was a lovely little piece of play I received from Irene and I just added the word.

I am so absolutely blown away by the talent in this group and by how much fun it has been to take part. It has stretched my creativity and also tried to teach me patience as I waited for the next one to arrive. I'm not sure about the patience part, but it's certainly been a blast.

Thank you so very, very much to Arlee (for arranging this whole thing and being such an excellent leader) and to Betty, Reta, Emmy, Michelle and Ginger. You are all spectacular!!