into the unknown

 

After cross stitching onto cooking foil I remembered a piece in the Cloth & Culture Now exhibition.  It was an old watering can which had been embroidered (see right) by Lithuanian Severija Incirauskaite-Kriauneviciene.

One piece of text I am keen to use is 'Older women turn to God or gardening'.  I have a weather beaten wreck of a watering can, so I set about fitting the text to the size and shape of it, then the tricky job of drilling the holes.  It was far more difficult than I had imagined so I reduced

the number of drilled holes.  Luckily I have been experimenting with raised cross stitch which requires fewer piercings of the textile (or in this case the metal).

I had carefully measured the spacing for the drilled holes but the battered can was a mass of different angles, thicknesses and levels of rust. The holes will not be precisely positioned. 

The inside needed sanding to remove jagged edges.  The holes themselves made an interesting pattern - from the outside and, more especially, from the inside with the light shining through.