BLOG 62

I have been playing all week and I am pleased with my first landscape picture because it looks spontaneous and painterly. All the fusing is in horizontal strips and it was done within a couple of days, after short periods of intense concentration. I just got on and did it! There is of course much work still to do, to complete it as a gallery hanging but, because I like it, the quilting/texturing is going to be no hardship!

Sunset landscape

As my worktop was littered with ready-fused fabric strips, I decided to continue with the design process and try a country landscape, using more delicate colours. I started with horizontal strips but then decided to try vertical strips for the tree trunk and bridge and softer rounded shapes for the foliage.

Country landscape

Now I think I understand what I am doing technique-wise, I decided to try a more formal garden setting, with lawns, walls, shrubs and hedges. So it has been a busy but productive period and I am more than pleased with what has come out of just playing!

Formal landscape

I also found time to do a bit more on the cow parsley picture. With the layers taut in a hoop, I started by scribbling in the base stitches with white thread, drawing some larger flower heads in the foreground.

Cow parsley Base stitches

Then I changed to cream thread for more texture, before adding a soft pink hue.

Cow parsley: decorative layer

I dissolved the supporting layers and ended up with a dome of flowers that didn’t look right for cow parsley. A bit of shaping solved that problem and here I have taken a pic to auditioned it is situ.

Cow parsley in situ

I have unearthed another work-in-progress this week. It is a large picture I made about 5 years ago, ready quilted and awaiting a garden gate. I have put too much work into it to ignore it. This will make a good lap project for those cold winter months ahead of me. All I need to do now is design a gate to go over the top of it … and that’s probably the reason I came to a stand still 5 years ago!!

The setting sun