I used the best part of a skein of soft and fluffy organic yarn (Pure,100 % wool, Creative Collection by Veritas - 50g/100m) to make this pompom snowman. I gave him a sweet colourful nightcap and his nose is made from a tiny scrap of fabric. Who doesn't love a cute snowman?
This collage piece is a stitched story about the kitchen in my childhood home. It took rather longer to plan than usual, because I first made a mind map to set free my thoughts and associations.
The technique of mind mapping is something I learned from Ali Ferguson. I found it to be very useful and insightful.
Starting from this mind map, I selected meaningful materials, words and motifs.
For the materials, I chose a piece of an actual cushion cover from that time, some jeans fabric (we wore jeans all the time back then), fabric scraps from a pair of slippers I had, some pieces of kitchen textiles and random fabrics that remind me of the atmosphere of this eighties kitchen.
As the motif I picked a whisk, which my mum often used, among many other things for making mayonnaise. This was a job that required a lot of attention and we often chatted as I watched her.
By stitching together the words and this image I’ve tried to capture a cherished memory of peaceful, secure and happy times.
I loved last week’s workshop so much that I went on stitching on all kinds of different things, like paper and orange peel and I also made some collages.
Here I used a chestnut leaf, after I made a print of the leaf on a piece of cloth. I sewed the leaf to the cloth and added some more stitching :
I did a workshop with Hillary Waters Fayle and learned the technique of stitching on leaves. It is such a fun and out of the box kind of thing to do. I really went for it and spent hours trying different things, I even did some visible mending 😊!
