Thursday 21 April 2011

Divers of the Dubai Mall

Before I begin my blog about the divers of the Dubai Mall, I have a couple of other pieces to show from my last blog about the speaker pods and the jug.

To finish off the collection of pieces based on the design of the speaker pods around the fountains at the Dubai Mall, I created a vessel. the problem with vessels is that they take up space - they don't store flat. However, it is so nice that it has been given a place to sit on one of my living room units.

iI used the same technique as for the front of the purse and the hanging. I used pelmet vilene for the foundation cutting two wide and two narrow panels. This was covered with a silver lame fabric and overlayed with black voile mache to knock back the silver ( I love this fabric. It is so delicate.). The design was free machined then I cut away part of the design to create a fret at the top of the panel. Each panel was edged with satin stitch and then joined together. It is fairly substantial and can stand very stably on its own. I did, however, save a small coffee jar which fits inside perfetly and is below the fretwork, should I need to use it and to give it even more stability.


This finished - for the moment anyway- my speaker pod selection.

Another small piece adds to the Arabian jug set, which is still ongoing. I was making some bag tags and used the jug design for some of them. They are not all photographed but this one was. I digitised the design so that I can use it as often as I wish and I have plans for other pieces for the jug design.



Now for the divers of the Dubai Mall.

Inside the Mall we followed a sign doe 'The waterfall'. We had no idea what to expect and as we reached the waterfall we just stood there absolutely amazed - 'gobsmacked' would fit better. There were actually two waterfalls which were was three stories high. Jutting out from the falls were huge bigger than mansize, silver divers. We could go onto three different levels to photograph these divers and so get some incredible shots. I took a lot of images and I mean 'A LOT'. I have also created an AV from them and set it to the music 'The ride of the Valkaries'. It took some time to fit all the images to the music - hitting the beat or phrase of music exactly but I love a challenge and it has turned out well. Here are a few of those images.




I used one of the divers to create a pattern.


This pattern was used to create metal shim embossed divers and digitised for machine stitched divers.


This piece is an attempt to create the waterfall with the divers. The divers were created from embossed silver metal shim. The waterfall had silver grey slub silk fabric as a base, overlaid with black tulle and then couched white and silver threads and yarns over the top. Some were threaded through the tulle. I used sticky dots to attach the divers.

I also made a little bag tag using the same silver grey slub silk with some couched yarns and then a machine stitched digitised diver over the top. It awaits its hanging thread.


Next I created a tassel which fitted the subject perfectly. I created several different sized digitised divers and stitched them out on a thin vilene. each was carfully cut out. As I had used silver in both the top and bottom bobbins the divers were the same on both sides so could hang and spin freely. I made the tassel from the same selection of threads and yarns as I had used on the panel. I stitched two of the divers around the header and hung the rest at different levels around the tassel.


Not an easy piece to photograph - all that white and reflective silver!

I have more pieces completed and ready to photograph and hopefully they will be in my next blog.

So until then

Cheers everyone.