Finishing and Hanging "She Was Lost in the Woods and Followed the Sound of Your Waves"

It's finished.  And even a little bit before it's being hung at Grove Gallery & Studios this coming weekend so I can enjoy it at home for a minute.  I was kicking around a lot of titles for this piece.  I don't like how long it is, but it's descriptive and means a lot to me.  

"She Was Lost in the Woods and Followed the Sound of Your Waves"

I've had a lot going on since August 2014...really since before then.  My residency with the Friends of the Porkies was very enlightening for my future.  This is why it was so important for me to put the work into this piece.  I did a lot of hiking while I was there, alone.  Sometimes I would feel lost, and then I'd hear Lake Superior and head that direction so I could take off my hiking boots and socks to dip my toes in her cold waters.

This piece is also very defining for me, I feel a lot less lost these days and I cannot wait to get back up to the U.P. this August to visit Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains again (I'm teaching a 3-day Beadweaving workshop August 19-21!!!)

Anyway, on to what I've been doing to finish this piece.  I hemmed the edges.  First machine stitching 3 rows in my header (something I learned in a Mary Sue Fenner Workshop)

I decided a blanket stitch would look nice for the actual stitching of the hem.

I had to fix this weaving error, which involved cutting, pulling two weft passes and re-weaving them with a needle.

Then on to measuring out the webbing..

Sewing the "loop" (fuzzy) side of the Velcro to the webbing. So if you need to roll the weaving it won't catch on it.

Pinning the webbing/Velcro to the weaving.

A "fix" for me, I wanted to extend these light blue waves a little more for aesthetics. 

And during critique it was decided that the above white area stood out too much, so I needed to tone it back. I pulled some of it and stitched dark blue through.

The "hook" side of the Velcro I connected to my strip of wood and I drilled 3 holes in wood panel for hanging purposes.  

Why the Velcro? It's much easier to hang.  The wood panel is either nailed or hung to the wall first. Then you can press the weaving up against it and slowly level it.