Experiments with text

I had a bit of wobble recently and felt that I needed to make the installation more meaningful to me personally - or for it to reflect something of who I am as a person. It felt a bit shallow. So I thought I would see what would happen if I free-machine embroidered some of my favourite verses from the bible. In thinking about which would be most appropriate, I thought verse 5 from the beginning of John's gospel was perfect: 'The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it'. I felt it was such a message of hope at this very difficult time with so much uncertainty and change on the horizon.

The reflections created were lovely - complex and organic. But stitching the strips is very difficult as they catch on the needle plate. I tried taping waxed paper over it in the hope that it would make it smoother, but that didn't help either. I think if I had more time, I would practise on bigger sheets but the difficulty then would be how to make sure the lines were parallel so that they could be cut into strips. Also, I would need to be much more comfortable with machine stitching text freehand than I am at the moment.