Answers, Experiments and New Ideas

I had a bit of an adventure away from home last week - a quick trip to Christchurch to see Leonard Cohen (most wonderful concert ever!) and to stay with friends from school. We laughed and laughed, sometimes until we cried, and it was great. A real treat for the soul.


It also provided me with an answer to my recent textile question on the origins of a hanging, for in my friend's home, hanging over the banister, was the exact same stitched hanging. It was in a different colourway and this one was made in silk, rather than wool, but it was definitely the same. They had been gifted it but told me it was from India. I think its done in a densely stitched chain stitch - can you imaginehow long that must take? Still more research required.... I will report in due course.... I had some real fun creatively while I was there. My friend's daughter showed me the materials she had purchased to make herself a fascinator to wear to Canterbury Cup Day yesterday and said she was planning to glue gun it all together somehow. Those words (glue gun) are enough to make me shudder!

Perhaps unsurprisingly the words were out of my mouth offering to help and stitch it before I had even thought about whether I could do it... nothing new here! We experimented with pinning it to get the right shape

and then I stitched it all together for her. It was such fun that had another of her friends turned up with a bag full of materials I suspect I would have started straight onto another version. Infact I find I have ideas for more of them already... Kara was delighted with how it turned out.

And around the fascinator construction I even managed to start a wee piece of stitching for myself. I have the beginnings of an idea for a new quilt - at the moment its really just akin to doodling in thread, but we will see where it goes. I have an idea of a piece with 6 different views of my favourite snake river formation put into one piece so that it will look like aerial snapshots taken on different days. I've been inspired by a painting of Colin McCahon, Six Days in Nelson and Canterbury, which is a great favourite of mine.

We'll see where my stitch doodling leads, although with a new nephew born last week and a very overdue birthday quilt for my sister-in-law still to be completed, I'm anticipating it will be a slow flowing development.