20/52

From day one of A Year In Stitches, Lindsey Oliver has been campaigning for an embroidered version of herself to appear on "The Wall." For those of you that don't know, the wall of my living room is covered with every piece of the AYIS project. It's filling up fast and I'm not yet halfway through the year. Don't they look so cool all together?

On Wednesday night, Lindsey and her girlfriend, Nicole Pries came over to our house to hang out before attending what we have lovingly dubbed "Trainwreck Karaoke" at our friendly neighborhood lesbian bar, Babe's. During this time, I was completing last month's piece and the topic of Lindsey's inclusion came up. I insisted that each week's piece is determined by either the best photo or the most memorable event of the previous week. So for her to make it on "the wall" she would have to be extra awesome that night. Nicole decided the best tactic for herself to be embroidered was to use reverse psychology and pretend that she didn't want it. Also campaigning that night was Jenn Ward, who has been around for many of the photos on the wall but hasn't made it into one yet. I had three lovely deserving ladies that all wanted to be artwork but I told them that only the best picture from the week would be used, despite their protests.

And wouldn't y'know, they just had to go and take an adorable picture that night. From left, Nicole Pries, Lindsey Oliver, Jenn Ward, and Nicole Priest. (no, that's not a typo. they just have freakishly similar names. We call them Plus T and Minus T)

I loved the way the solid colors of everyone's shirts worked well with each other yet made each girl stand out. So I decided to define each one by their shirt color and embroider them in only those hues. The result is fun and different than anything else I've done so far. I really love exploring new techniques with each piece and seeing how they all contrast on the big wall in my living room. The whole project is coming together as one huge work of art instead of the 52 individual pieces I had originally planned.

"Babes of Carytown"