Busy Stitching Week

Garden Tiara Done!

My tiara is made from scraps of an old quilt that I found bagged up at a flea market. I couldn’t believe that someone would really cut up an old quilt, but when I saw how badly some of the pieces were rotted (especially the reds), I forgave the culprit. I’ve used these scraps for several years now for all sorts of projects. The points of the tiara are lined with felted sweater wool, and a piece of heavy-duty artists’ canvas stiffens the head band, to keep things from stretching out of shape. It will lie flat, with a button closure.

Next is a journal page from the 17th of June, which got the whole creative surge started.

It was a bit like reading Virginia Woolf, being Clarissa Dalloway as she moved between the present and the past. Whatever came into and out of the needle was simple where I “was” at the moment. Linen, cotton, silk threads and scraps, vintage rick rack and some lovely old mother-of-pearl buttons, beads– this was the impetus I needed to get started playing again, to stop worrying about the boxes of things still unpacked in the house.

Then, another journal page:

This one is a bit more rigid (I had started to worry about closet space again, I think). I made the surface from strips of linen and small bits of things that I basted to a scrap of an old linen napkin. It was following the strips that gave the perpendicular shape to it. Not sure this one is such a happy piece (it is NEVER happy to contemplate a lack of closet space). But, it was the piece for Thursday the 24th.

Yesterday I meant to clean things up in the studio, and I wanted to start with the gibblets and nibbles of wool left over from felting and embellishing. Yes, I save EVERYTHING. On my way to the trash bin, however, I made the fatal error that took me to the next project: I TOUCHED the little bits and pieces. Immediately I turned back to my work table and began to play with everything. On the table were scraps from embroidery, some silk threads, wool yarn, bright cotton flosses and perles and knitting threads– all things I’d been doing over a year or so. I wrapped some of these pieces with a length of wool yarn. Added some more. There were scraps from a winter coat my mom had made. And an embellished piece I’d done last summer. Before I knew it, I had wound an entire box of these scraps into a loverly froo-froo ball! But wait– there were more boxes. And a metal tin . . . this went on and on until I had not one or two balls, but THREE delicious spheres!

All the texture from the left-overs of projects is dizzying! Up close, this is what one of the larger ones looks like:

Makes me want to take off my shoes and dive in!

And other things are in the works– I am on a wonderful run, and can’t stop the flow!