stitch in time

I've been toying with the idea that the stitching in this series is symbolic of my srtuggles in writing kana and now kangies. One stitch at a time , one by one, now backtrack, forward now.
I hadn't used handstitching before and at first I thought it was only embellishment.
But as work progressed I became aware that there was more to it than just rounding out the composition.
There habd been some previous challenges to this particular piece.I got carried away
doing the background and the shibori details and forgot to do the printing so a way to mask the shibori areas had to be found. I used thickened gum arabic as a resist and was pleasantly surprised with how it worked. The whole process was very simple and washing it off by hand was not a problem.
The two silk strips were mounted on a crinkly midnight blue silk which creates a subtle dialog with the silk strips texture. A border of the same fabric with some discharged motifs was added. The stitches here are not only symbolic, but also served to tack the border to the background. The raw edges are totally intentional since I really want to stress the fact that this is a textile work. They also curb any sense of "being precious" and brings the whole piece down to the real material world.

neki desu