Hey! Happy new year everyone! I hope it’s a wonderful and creative year for you!
So here’s my progress lately: got back to my van after Christmas and bought an oil-filled radiator…I like cuddling it even though it is rather metallic with sharp edges which are too hard to put my bare legs on without using a towel. It keeps me warm, ahhhh bliss. So at least my van is useable now. And the glorious luxury of coming home with the heater already turned on! Oh now, that is heavenly. When I got back to the site after the hols my lovely neighbour informed me that he’d had to scrape the snow off my awning roof to stop it collapsing but hadn’t got there in time to stop the cross pole from bending into a curve. Other caravanners weren’t so lucky and their awnings collapsed completely. The whole awning although intact is now a bit droopy and collects the rain too easily! Anything that needs to be kept super dry is now in the van….cluttering up the place so I am making best use of all underbed storage by stuffing as much as possible in there for insulation as much as to save space. I can feel another book purge coming on! She says, having only just borrowed about 20 books from my brother on the subject of writing. I’m starting a novel writing course in a couple of weeks. Yipee!
And I have just got onto this creativity course Tiny Steps Boldly Taken with coach Dan Goodwin – that starts on saturday so I will report back with my progress, depending on how tiny my steps are and how bold.
The corner of the patchwork quilt that was missing in the previous post has now been filled in. Hurrah! So now I need to do another oblong about the same size. I feel like I’m running out of the right coloured patches that have enough scale and interest but will see how it goes. Don’t make me go to the fabric shop and have to spend more money! I couldn’t bear it! Yeah, right!
[wpg]
I finally finished the Underbrush picture after deciding it didn’t really need any gold machine stitching on it. Phew! I did like the eye of the bird though and making the beak look sharper with a bit of an outline of chain stitching. There is something satisfactorily obsessive about doing chain stitching. It’s one of those things that once you get going on it, you don’t really want to stop. Well I don’t anyway. Once I’d stretched it over the canvas, I kept thinking oh I could have added a few more sequins here and there and some more stitching to blend them in. But knowing when to stop is a virtue I think!
Underbrush is now on for sale on Etsy and so is the Yellowhammer, though that was a bit of a tussle to stretch over the box canvas – remind me never to use thick velvet for an embroidery again! I think I had a mild anxiety attack trying to pull it taught so the corners would sit right. It still looks a bit bulky but never mind, I don’t think it detracts from it’s rural charm! Both pieces are approx 8″ square which is a nice neat size to fit into an interior.