Finishing up 2017 and getting 2018 ready to go

I finished the last of my weekly stitching pieces this week.

Here's the whole years worth of Signs Of Life: The five universal shapes

Next year I think I'm going back to leaves, at least I'm starting out with leaves. I have several of the botanical/eco printed leaves on silk that I've decided to use. This is what I have for a start, if I decide to keep going with it I will have to print more.

I'm going to stitch them onto canvas, in the picture above I have the leaves laying on top of the individual pieces of canvas. I've yet to decide what I will be doing with them after they are stitched. One idea is to attach them to each other and make an accordion fold book, I've never done that which adds to the appeal.

2018 Daily stitching
 This will look very familiar, I'm using another piece of the fabric I printed and am doing #3 in the series.

It's fused to a piece of felt and ready to stitch.

After taking a bit of a break from daily stitching this month I'm eager to get back to it. I found I really missed having it to do in the morning to get me ready to work in the studio. In fact I've really been quite aimless this month, I haven't really focused on much of anything. I did get my try at English Paper Piecing appliquéd onto purple silk and wrapped around a 10 inch square canvas.

I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"

Christmas Postcards and a try at English Paper Piecing

My last blog post seems like a long time ago, but when I checked it was about two weeks ago. I spent most of that time sick, I had been concerned about getting the ugly bronchial mess my husband had but instead I got a deep sinus viral mess. High fever, terrible headaches, etc for about a week, I'm now almost back to normal.

I took my usual process pictures of what I was working on with my phone camera as usual and then discovered when I went to write a blog post that my phone and my computer have stopped working together. Today I finally found my camera, I had put it in my suitcase when we went to NY and had never taken it out, so I do have a few pictures.

I started to make my Christmas postcards like I've done for the past ten years or so and was finally honest with myself and admitted that I am so tired of making postcards. I made less than half of what I normally do, finally used up the bolt of timtex that I'd had for years and called it done. It felt like such a relief, I have been doing postcards since 2000 and I think I've made my last one.  Even more telling was a day later I read my horoscope (something I rarely do) and it said I'm like a snake shedding my skin to get rid of the old and start new. The postcard photos are on the phone.

Since I finished my daily stitching with a month left in the year I thought I would try something different. Several months ago I saw some English Paper Piecing in a shape that made a cross when four were stitched together. I ordered the pieces and they've been sitting here waiting for me. This summer I ordered some recycled silk sari fat quarters and decided that the two should go together. I thought I could work on them for the whole month, I lasted less than two weeks, But I did get a small piece made.

Once I get the paper pieces off the back I will appliqué it to the piece of purple silk that's underneath it in the top two photos. I've also decided that although I love the results of what I did, it is something I will probably never do again. I took the bottom photo so you could see the scale, they are one inch pieces.

Weekly Stitching
Signs of Life:The five universal shapes
wks 49-50

I'm working on the outer border now.

I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"