This beautiful wall-hanging entitled “The Lullaby” was made by Artist Susie Williams. Susie describes her inspiration for this amazing piece:

“The Lullaby” began not as a visual concept, but as a feeling. I wanted to create a piece that would feel like a hug. Inspired by my neighbor’s llama who loves cushioning under the sunlit pines in the early morning and pictures I had seen of mama llamas and their crias, I thought the gentle embrace of a mama llama and her baby with the encompassing circle of a tree and the moonlight would prefectly capture the feeling of a hug. Since the subject of this wall hanging was the llamas, I knew that I needed to create them in a very special way using real llama wool. How fortunate I was to discover Cram’s Llama Farm from their ad in Handwoven Magazine. A brief phone call and a couple days later, rovings of red, gray, brown and white llama wool showed up at my house. I didn’t think I could be more delighted with a box full of gorgeous wool until I discovered Bev Cram’s handwritten note in the packaging – “my llamas are very happy!” With this wonderful wool from happy llamas and my beautiful drop spindle in hand I began my lullaby.

The wall hanging took about 400 hours to complete. I had never spun llama wool for thread, but I knew I had to make the fiber very thin and it had to be strong enough to be pulled by a needle through at least two layers of fabric. So I spun several yards of a single tightly twisted thread, washed the skein in hot soapy water and hung it to dry with a small fishing weight to set the twist. The mama and baby llama were each embroidered separately and then attached to the background. The mama was done in a “long and short” embroidery stitch with fringed stitching around her chest. The cria was stitched in small “french knots” to create a different texture from that of the mama. The ears are made of felt. I placed the ikat woven blanket on the cria to create a more enchanted feeling to the piece. The tree is made from fabric and the moonlit leaves with beads. In order to create the heavy texture of foliage, I made small bead clusters. The clusters were composed of four beads strung together, tied and attached as a unit to the background. This beading technique took a long time to complete but the effect was well worth the effort. The background is pieced from various fabrics and accented with hand-stitched delicate “lazy daisies” in variegated thread. The surrounding border is a motif of “wooly,” felt leaves, bead wire leaves (very tiny size 14 beads on very fine 24 guage wire), and ribbon embroidery. The trim around the entire piece is black lace. “The Lullaby” was stitched and embroidered lovingly by hand.

Materials used: • Hand spun llama wool from Cram’s Llama Farm • Felt • Buttons • Black lace • Fabrics of cotton, mixed synthetics and velveteen * Metallic thread • Pearl cotton thread • Ribbon • Beads (nearly a thousand)

Okay…I’m feeling inspired! How about you?

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July 9th, 2009 | Tags: Fiber Arts, Fiber Arts Friday, Llama, Wall-hanging | Category: Fiber Arts, Fiber Arts Friday | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL