Blue sea and sky, dark island

Life has been busy lately and not much of a creative nature has occurred. However, the Machine Embroidery Group at the Embroiderers Guild is meeting this week and I have a task to complete before then.

I missed the last meeting, being at the Ballarat Fibre Arts workshop, which was wonderful. But I felt that I had to complete the small piece that I undertook to do at the February meeting.

So I have been thinking, thinking.

The task is to use an image that has been provided and interpret it in stitch.
This is the image I was given.

I decided to continue with my current interest, fabric collage.
The original is only small, about 6" by 4" (can't remember what it is in centimetres, quilting happens in inches more often than not. Even though this is not, strictly speaking quilting, it is related. It has three layers, or more, and has pieces of fabric joined together to make the piece).

I used lots of very small pieces of fabric that I had saved from previous works. They were even smaller than I have been using lately. I am not even sure why I kept them.

I used a piece of fusible interfacing and laid out the fabric pieces. I ironed them on and sewed then so that they were secure. I worked on the background first. You would think I would remember that that is the way to go but I had to pick off quite a few pieces that were the foreground, rather than the background, and then put them back on later.

I used the image as my inspiration but didn't try to be exact (so not my thing, being exact). It was enjoyable to be doing some creative work again, even though it is only small.

This is one of the times when the actual piece looks much better than the photo.

I then cut a piece of commercial craft felt to size and zigzagged around the edge to attach it. It is firm enough but also pliable.

The idea of the book is that a person has made the book (some people opted to just have a box), put in an original image that was then taken by a member of the group who interpreted the image in fabric and thread. Then that person put in a related image, which was interpreted by a different person. This has been done many times and when the book if finished the original maker will have a lovely book of works by different people.

It is a great idea. The pieces are small, the techniques are up to the individual person and there is no time limit. Someone will end up with a lovely little book.