The Difference A Few Stitches Make...

A while back I showed you this new piece I started. Today I wanted to share with you the difference that a few hand stitches make in finishing off this row of fused squared.

I hadn't thought to do this post until I had already completed some of it, so it's not a true before and after, but you can see just how much more interest and texture the contrasting stitching gives to those squares and rectangles. (The colour in the top shot is truer to the actual piece...the two other shots are too green/lime)

I haven't touched this piece for a couple of weeks, but I do plan to work on it more once I'm up at the cottage.  It'll be a great piece to stitch away at and I won't have to bring along a whole truck load of supplies! My thought for this summer is to have a lot of hand work ready to work on so I can leave my sewing machine and fabric stash at home and limit my art packing to a couple of bags containing fibre art needing stitch and some very basic art journalling supplies (journal, Koi watercolour set, and a couple of black and white pens).

New Abstract Series Underway...

Last week I posted about some beautiful Vicki Welsh hand dyed fabric that I was lucky enough to win. I just love hand dyed fabrics.  They've got so much interesting texture and rich colour.  

I've started a new series of abstract quilts using a collection of my own hand dyed fabric combined with Vicki's pieces.  All of the fabrics have been prepared with Misty Fuse so that I can now create by cutting and collaging in an intuitively spontaneous way.

I just love how all of these fabulous colours compliment each other.  And, as you can see, every little bit of fused 'eye candy' has the potential for finding it's way into one of the finished pieces.

Although I can see hand stitch further enhancing these pieces, I plan to start with extensive machine quilting first.  Hopefully once the cast comes off I'll be able to get back to hand stitching right away since the collection of works in progress that require hand stitching and/or beading is getting bigger and bigger!  LOL