hand embroidery

john and fanny - a tender courtship

cotton, silk, linen, embroidery floss; hand sewing, hand embroidery

hand embroidery

unforgiven

dyed cottons, batiks, embroidery floss; hand sewing, hand embroidery
has yet to be finished in some way

and a new background to stitch on

stitching and drawing

Inspired by one of Jude Hill's classes, I've been handstitching, now drawing eyes mostly with Inktense pencils, then wetting them to make them permanent. What a trip for this "if I can't do it by machine, I won't do it at all" woman.

stroked

I feel my focus shifting, a strong need to pet fabric emerged, instead of painting on paper and canvas.

In about three weeks the first "anniversary" of the stroke comes up. Some things have dramatically changed for the better, mostly physical. And though I expect to recover even more, I have to get used to the fact that I will never recover to my pre-stroke status. But then again, my real problem is my mental and emotional state. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, no driving, not being able to care for my autistic son anymore (but "people" seem to expect me to), a daughter who isn't well, etc., etc.

Anyway, this is the backside of a thread painting piece I had sitting here (never liked it). It's about 21,5 cm x 27 cm / ~ 8,5 x 10,5". It was machine quilted and today I grabbed it and started drawing and hand stitching on it. Acrylic, ink, Copic markers and embroidery floss. I'm not sure if it's finished.

wallhanging pogress

This is the current state of the wallhanging from my last post. I sewed down all the fabric and batting pieces with black cotton thread, then embroidered with various cotton and rayon threads and washed away the stabilizer.

new wip

The background fabric is a half yard of "hopelessly-losing-the-glitter" fabric, folded in half, right sides together. On that I laid down heavy layers of scrap batting and fabric. I topped it with wash-away stabilizer and now I'm trying to free-motion all over the surface. Not easy, I just broke the second needle.

the rage and the madness

4 small strip pieced blocks, backed with water soluble stabilizer, heavily embroidered with cotton and rayon thread, that will somehow end up in one wallhanging. I think I will applique them to a background fabric.