This was going to be a quick, easy project; a cover for my sewing machine. But, like Ike and Tina, I never, ever do anything nice and easy.
It was going to be all machine-stitched 1/2" wide strips of fabric, but at some point, I decided to use buttons for her tail instead. Purple buttons, actually, but the mother of pearl (MOP) seemed so apropro. This is very nearly my entire collection of vintage MOP buttons. I just have a handfull of those dull shirt buttons left. That’s a victory right there; I love these buttons, and now I get to look at them!
Some of the buttons ( the more modern yellow and green ones) are ridiculously fragile; I broke several along the way. That means this can’t be practical, so not a machine cover, but yet another wall hanging.
I came up with a new technique for the tail fin; narrow triangles of fabric stitched down the center, very close together. Great texture. Since the tail was going to be purple, I did the fin in purple. This caused a monumental unbalance of colors, since it was the only purple in the piece.
so I added some swirls. You know me, right? There are about 4 layers of purple threads in those swirls, the top one being a length of red and white holiday twine dyed purple. I tend to use whatever comes to hand…
This is from a couple of days ago, when I first thought I was done, but the purple tailfin was an issue.
see how the lower left corner is kind of pale and blah when compared to the upper right?
And I love these 3 huge mother of pearl buttons I’ve hoarded for over 20 years, and finally had a place to use them! Sadly, they disappeared in the project, and diluted the effect of the swirls, so they went back into stash.
The fringe is a mix of orange mother of pearl chunks from a broken bracelet alternating with purple amethyst and crystal beads. I had pulled a whole pile of aqua beads to use for fringe, but…
it enough! The MOP, the colour balance, that hair!
