Stitching and Snow

Overnight and during the day today we go about 15 inches of snow here in Maine. Here are a couple of brave neighbors I spotted out our kitchen window.....I didn't put even one toe outside today.

Paul took a walk with his snowshoes.....but stopped to clean off the bird feeders on his way.

I appreciate all the emails and kind words of support after my milestone post yesterday...I'm feeling the love! And go figure.....just this morning another image from the blog popped up in my Pinterest feed....this overly embellished leaf inspired piece I did after the Swirls of Color class.  

I wrote about my process here:

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/07/learning-curve.html

This piece is knocking around the studio somewhere....and as soon as I find it I'm going to finish it find it a home.

There's a LOT going on here.

But I like this similar, but simpler wool piece even better.  

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/08/wooly-leaf.html

Although there is some hand stitching in both pieces...most of the 

stitches are decorative stitches on my machine. Even some of the coaching is done by machine.

I do love to hand stitch....but I am also reminded what my sewing machine is able to do.  And I know I'm going to have to be careful with my thumb.....even after it heals.

I had spent some time hand stitching on my Stitch Camp project before my injury.....and wasn't going to post about it until I got a little further along.  I wasn't happy with some of it....and knew I could improve it with more stitches and a few overlays.  The goal is to blur the lines between the pieces and tie everything together.

Now I'm thinking there are parts I can do on my machine while my thumb is healing.   

I came across this sheer curtain piece I painted a while back....then machine stitched some texture into it with my machine.  I do love this little back and forth knotty stitch.....and I think I could use this technique on my piece in a few places.

As of this evening...it's still snowing.