The People's Doily

hand embroidered meat

plated embroidered ham with rosemary and grape garnish

I saw someone machine embroidering a shirt but they were using plastic wrap in the hoop, trying to get rid of the hoop marks on the fabric. I laughed. it looked like they were embroidering a sandwich.

my brain immediately saw an embroidered slice of bologna. then it asked "what art would be embroidered on bologna?"

ok, then. it's decided.

I went to the grocery store to buy some bologna and left without buying, saying to myself, "Laura, this is a stupid idea ... drop it ... you don't have time for this."

a week later I had to go back because my brain just couldn't let go. I'll just make one, I convinced myself. I spent $2.65 for 10 slices of bologna - something I haven't eaten in yeeers. think of it as art material.

bologna didn't embroider well, even with short threads and the tiniest needle. my hands warmed it up too fast. just a little bit of thread rubbing past this meat destroyed its integrity. and if the needle went through the thread of a previous stitch, it pulled it out of this marshmallow meat.

one friend commented, "everyone knows bologna is felted meat." I needed meat with grain in it. another friend bought me sliced ham after watching my bologna trials. THAT is the sign of a true friend.

to get the pic above, I had to warm up the bologna, which I had thrown in the freezer for another trial but then gave it up when I got the ham. to warm it up quickly, I rigged a hair dryer to blow on it for about 5 minutes.

my first ham trial was just that. I opted for a second one using a paper pattern from one of my own drawings from other projects, resizing it and positioning it to take advantage of the lines in the ham.

ready for surgery, sans anisthetic

ta-daa!

at some point, all good things must come to an end. I threw away my first piece of embroidered ham.

since it was trash day and the trash can was freshly emptied, the ham landed flat on the bottom of the can.

where embroidered meat goes to die

I was hoping my housemate would find it unsuspectingly but he didn't by the next morning so I mentioned it. good thing 'cause it was already 1/3 gone - wolfed away by the antssss.

they devoured this juicy rotting treat, breaking it up into many little ant-size pieces and carting them off although we noticed that only about 1 in 10 careening back home carried a visible piece. the rest we presumed had engorged thoraxes and were dragging on the ground trying not to regurgitate before they got home (if that is what they do - anybody know?)

two days later a bit of meat and some thread in the shape of a rather tattered cock remained on the bottom of the can.

it seemed like the ants left a fuzzy mark where they dealt with the thread. trying to leave it behind?

three days later, no more ham is gone, the thread is tidied up, and most of the pink fuzzy spots are also gone. I stuck my short arm down the deep can in the name of research and touched the pink fuzz. but that revealed nothing. no fuzz, no change in what it looked like.

you know what the solution is. another piece of ham with 5 colors of embroidery thread that are far away from ham pink. coming soon. any wagers?