A Summer Day!!

I actually sat in the sun and stitched this afternoon. I was sitting just to the left of the honeysuckle you see here and the warmth of the sun released it's perfume, and the bees were happily buzzing about in it. My idea of Heaven. However, if it is another fine day tomorrow I really ought to do some gardening - on the right day that's pretty heavenly too.
I have been working on more fabric pages for my book. I'm undecided about the one below. I love the Celtic Knot design but am not sure about the thread I am using. It was such a job getting it transferred onto the fabric. The background is painted Bondaweb ironed onto pale green cotton fabric with blue/green organza over the top. First I tried simply tracing the design but it wouldn't transfer onto the organza. Next I tried a transfer pencil but again the design resisted being transferred. Next I pinned the tracing onto the background and with a fine black pen almost scratched it through the tracing paper and onto the fabric. I'll keep going and see what it looks like when it is complete. Maybe a few touches of gold somewhere will help or I could paint over it and touch it up with gilding cream.



You've see this page before (a couple of posts back) but it has changed a bit since last time, and I think this arrangement is better. I was amazed at the time it took me to come to a satisfactory result. The principles of collage are so simple but it is so difficult to find just the right elements and then have them in the right proportions and positions.

I had originally intended to be as authentic as possible with the content of these pages, but quickly realised that I didn't know nearly enough about Anglo-Saxon England to do that, so I have opted for a flight of fancy and the stitched pages are imagined scraps of textiles which might have existed then.

I must find a way of ageing the edges of each page and maybe distressing the fabric to match the cover. I still haven't worked out how to bind the pages or fix them into the cover - I am hoping for a Eureka moment.

As the cover started off by spending about three months lying under the cherry tree in the garden, perhaps I should be brave enough to put the pages out there too!