Today I am getting ready to go away for a week’s walking in Cornwall and easily distracted as I am I found this piece, based on a large cactus plant that I used for my inspiration. It was an exercise in straight stitch. You can see below that it is made from two layers of blanket with the stitching all in an ecru perle thread.
Some time later I chose to do another sample in dyed blanket – not quite sure what I was aiming for as whichever way I display this it doesn’t look right, but perhaps I was just playing around with ideas.
I do like the idea of the different colours peeping through the holes and I’ve always liked a bit of seed stitching on a plain background. So fired with a bit of enthusiasm I went up into the loft and got down my box of dyed blanket pieces. Right on the top were two what I would call
‘grungy’ colours – indigo and stone. Not my usual choice but thought they looked good together and that I would challenge myself to use them, picking out two other pieces to accompany the selection.
The colours in the photograph are a bit softer than they actually are but I particularly like the fact that the stone coloured piece still has the blanket edge. I’ve selected some threads – all perle – and some stone beads that I’ve been wanting to use for a long while. I’m not hoping for rain but at least I’ll have a hand stitch project to get on with if the weather is bad!
Good weather and a gripping book meant that there was very little time to sew but the small piece that I began on holiday has been finished with rather a lot of beads and very little effort.
JOLLIETEXTILES 