More falling leaves!

I couldn't let it go at simple leaf shapes-- the table decoration project simply took a different turn when it ended, and the leaves assumed a life of their own.  The leaves were like stepping stones, each leading to the next.

These are some of the last ones.  The fabrics are recycled clothing pieces and a few old fabrics that have been around since my son was living at home (!).  The main vein of the last leaf is a hand-wrapped cord.  I make these loosely-wrapped and colorful cords while watching the British Mysteries.  In two nights of mysteries, it's amazing what can be achieved!

ENJOY THE AUTUMN!!!

Another Embroidered Grid

I have been playing with the idea of grids again.  They are actually great fun to embroider— especially if they are not perfectly aligned.  Actually, much of life falls into that same category of non-perfection being more interesting than the excruciatingly perfect.  This is one I did on a doodle cloth that has been floating around the studio for some time.  You can see the blue spots on it from my spraying a bit of dye on it months ago.

After this grid was done, I immediately began to think of ways to improve the next one.  There are so many possibilities when breaking down space into small segments.

The Summer Garden

This little garden "grid" is an idea stemming from my observations of a lovely patio, obviously quite old, made with differently-shaped tiles, covered with moss, fallen leaves, and little plants growing between the cracked paving holding all together. Old homes have the most interesting garden features, I believe.



I am starting to plan my own extended patio, which we will probably put in sometime after the weather cools a bit (does it seem like it has been summer for an awfully long time?). Looking at different paving stone is quite interesting! And thinking about the two separate parts of this patio to be put in gives great scope to the imagination. One will be a mostly shaded patio, the other a mostly sunny one. As the tiles weather, they will gain very individual character, much like the fifteen little tiles I have embroidered. This is a detail of one of the tiles in the grid, lines of long straight stitch couched down with small straight stitches, one of my favorite ways to add texture to an area:



Along with thinking of the coming autumn, I am still capturing the flowers of the summer in my sketchbooks. These two drawings are from a sketchbook I made ten years ago and just "rediscovered." It was part of a small box of books I made for a gallery ten years ago and when I left, I packed them away and promptly forgot about them until I was rummaging amongst the boxes this past week. There are even covers I made without sewing pages in them-- a good project for later in the year.



The paper is handmade (my own), and the cover is raw-edged fabric layers stitched with heavy hand made paper as its core. The flowers are half-filled with fabric glued in to the leave and petal shapes, which is how I feel about the flowers at this time of the year-- half with us, half memory. I am trying to work out an interesting way to make a fiber work of this half-and-half concept, but the textures of paper and the fabric scraps with the delicate pen and ink lines seem to resist stitching.

As hard as it is for me to believe, there are some things in life that simply don't read well as embroideries. Ow! I can't believe I just wrote that!

Pastel Grid

After working on the Autumn piece and reveling in the freedom of so many different stitches, I was ready to work on something softer, more controlled. I began to sort through my linen strips for inspiration. There is an article in a recent issue of Quilting Arts Magazine about a quilt block made of woven fabric strips, and I had that in mind as I sorted. Instead of soft cotton, though, I prefer to stitch on linen, and I save scraps of this wonderfully versatile fabric in all sizes and shapes. These soft colors came from dyeing and/or painting the linen. Two of the strips started life as trousers, and another is a remnant from a linen shift I made many moons ago. And except for the two cotton prints and the natural silk weaving in the upper left corner, all the little linen bits came from small boxes I use to store (hoard?) the bits and pieces that I cannot bear to part with. The shapes themselves are interesting starting points for thinking of design, and I rummage in these small boxes quite frequently for ideas.

After I got the strips woven and the pieces laid in place, I used flower thread and some vintage tatting thread to stitch things down and add more texture. It is a pleasure to look at this grid (about eight inches square, I believe) and see old clothes and painting projects there. Though it is "green" embroidery, it is only by accident. The pieces are from years of loving even the smallest scrap of linen fabric and saving it for another project!