Fresh Start

A new morning and new beginning...

Winter Flower Dreams

Today when I was about to sip my tea, I went and got my camera instead when I saw the amaryllis reflected in my cup. I'm continuing to stitch flowers and the pale pink one on the faded kimono silk seemed in keeping with the reduced colour of the season. Later while out on a walk, I discovered this real flower - a little pale, but undaunted by winter.

Tiger Sun Dreams

Here are a few more photos of the hand stitched piece I have nearly completed. I've run out of the colour of embroidery thread I need and I wasn't about to brave the stores on Boxing Day! 2010 is the year of the tiger and I used a piece of prayer flag which had the outlines of a tiger on it as an approximate guide to stitch one. I say 'approximate' because it's so small it was hard to tell what was what. Then yesterday when I was listening to a book, I nodded off for a paragraph or so and found myself dreaming of stitching triangular rays just inside the velvet circle. This morning I added them in - I guess this planet is the sun, and the tiger essence will be the fire, as otherwise, it's pretty dark.

Sailing

Here is the handstitching I've been doing while I was away from the island - it's grown further since and I'm eager to keep following it's journey. While in Vancouver, I visited Maiwa, where I was fortunate to receive some free dyeing-related supplies, left by a good samaritan who was no longer using them. I also explored the Rokko fabric shop, with its copious choices of lush fabrics, but only chose three half metre pieces, as I'm waiting to hear if I will get into a Nancy Crow workshop in the spring, and that will require alot of fabric shopping. When I came home, I received notification that 'Both And' has been accepted into Coast Collective Gallery's upcoming Peace and Conflict show that begins November 5th. I've also chosen nine of my art quilts to put in a show I will be part of beginning November 8th at Satin Moon Quilt Shop.

Stitching and Velvet Embossing

I started stitching my quilt today - because of it's unusual construction I really have been thinking carefully about the order in which to sew the pieces. I sewed the large squarish partially needle felted piece on first, including the beaded trim. And I decided to handstitch the smaller squares in contrasting coloured embroidery thread and will probably free motion stitch the rest. The photo with the blue thread has stitches that carry on from the quilted lines I've already done on the main squarish piece. I'm stitching on the blue rectangles with orange stitching in lines to lead the eye into the piece. I also tried embossing velvet today - I may have done this before unsuccessfully - I probably used a stamp that was too detailed. It took only minutes and I could see applying this to garments.