Thread organization

I made some little dog shapes out of clay to use as thread holders for some of my stitching threads. Yesterday I spent some time organizing my threads and using the little dogs for their purpose.

These are some of my beautiful 50% silk 50% wool threads from Caron. I've been using them to stitch on another picture. This one is done on wool and its about 11 inches square.

iStitching on wool is lovely.  i backed it with a layer of quilt batting so the needle just glides through and I don't need to use a hoop because it's got enough hand that it won't pucker.  I still have some stitching to do on this piece. But I am enjoying it quite a lot

Close ups of the Grove stitchery

I completed the wool and fabric stitchery yesterday and these are a couple of close ups of it. 

To finish it I just stretched it around a piece of foamcore board.  It finishes at about 10" x 30".

I had used linen for the background of that which was okay.  But of course now I have to try another piece using an off white felted wool. 

So I've started a smaller piece that is going to be a vase of flowers.

Now for the stitchery part.

Something new

Something that I don't do enough is to play with fabric and stitching in a way that isn't related to the store. I do so much sewing of samples and writing patterns that it takes up a lot of time.  Then it seems like whenever I have time to so I work on something that is for the store.

 However the last few days I have consciously been trying to do something that is just playful exploration. I was very inspired by the work of Nancy Nicholson who is a British person who does a lot Of machine stitching on fabric she has a blog and a Facebook page. (Sorry not to include links to these pages, I am writing on my iPad which is a little more limited with that sort of thing.)

She has beautiful stylized images and a wonderful sense of color putting things together. For myself I am a bit more timid and have more conventional imagery. Well, it's all about the process isn't it.

This is part of a longer piece which I will hopefully photo graph later after it is finished. At the moment I have to stitch more on some birds. 

here's to trying something new, enjoy your day.