Swapping My Heart

I spent a whole day yesterday weaving wire into a heart for the swap challenge that Folksy 2010 Valentine HEART Swap.  I was surprisingly finding it hard to come up with an idea, so was really delighted when I thought about the wired heart.  Ten years ago this February I had made a simplified version where I twisted heart shapes from wire then covered each one by hand with tissue paper and sealed in PVA.  For two weeks I walked around with sore fingers and the sitting room being covered with hundreds of hearts for a Valentines event I was organising.  This little weaved wired heart was just an extension of that idea really.  I wasn't quite sure what I was to do with the heart once it was weaved, but the line of thought was that i would sew different objects into it with words and little bits and bobs.

It started off as 3D, until evening hit and I realised that the bright spark (not) of an idea to attach buttons onto the heart with jump rings, not only left my fingers sore, but the heart lost its shape and seemed far too heavy, even with the additional ribbon I had attached.  Excuse state of my fingers, I 've been dying metal and the bits of shavings that can be seen here and there on the pics (I tried to crop off fingers and table on pictures because both are a real mess) is from then sanding down metal.  Yes, I should have cleared up before taking images.  But once I have an idea, I tend to just start even though I may be working ons omething else.  Not good, but its how its always been.  So my fingers have already been through the mill and my nails look like those of a builder.

 

 

 

By 8pm I was beginning to become a tad unhappy with the look of it, so removed most of the buttons on their jump rings and began to replace them by sewing the buttons on with wire.

By 11pm, I had covered the wired heart, but am still not happy with it.

It's not what was in my head.  I don't want to send anything to my swap person if I wouldn't be proud to hang it up myself.  So now I have put it to one side to think some more of what I want to create and whether I should continue to alter the heart or change it completely and start something new.

Back to the thinking chamber.