Six Million Stitches: Vienna 66,000
Beginning the process of making 66,000 stitches. Stitching with the hair was more difficult than I had imagined. Some of it was so fine it was hard to see, let alone thread. It was often slippery and I had to knot it several times up by the eye of the needle to keep it from falling out. The knots were too fine at the end of the hairs to keep them from pulling through the cloth. At first I anchored them from behind with squares of tape but eventually just started stitching through the front of the cloth leaving a tail I could hold onto until the hair was secured. The older hair I had hoped to reuse from a former memorial project was often brittle, breaking again and again. Some interested passer-byes asked me to pluck some hairs from their heads and I am stitching in my own hair as well as that of family and friends.
Photo Credit: Sharon Yan