Slow progress

I am still working on the flowers and decay piece every day, but embroidery is such a slow process. I try to do about 6 or 7 lengths of thread in a session, and that takes about an hour or longer. Yesterday I was getting close to finishing the lower 4 inches. Where the blue part joins the rusty part there are hundreds of French knots and I also added some random small seed stitches and some seed beads. I may add more later, but I will move on to some more of the lazy daisy flowers over felted circles. I am pleased with the painted background. As I work on it, I see all the many layers of paint that I built up, and that is very gratifying.

I spent several hours at the weekend trying to manipulate photos for the online study group on colour and composition. We were supposed to isolate a small area of a photo and enlarge it for a focal point and abstraction. I never even got close to what I wanted. I did print more poppies, one in b and w. I went to the LQS and bought 4 pieces of b & w fabric, one of which would make good poppy petals, but would need gathering at the centre. That could be a future project, but need to finish the current ideas first.

It is only about 8 weeks till I go to the UK and in the middle is the quilt symposium, so I am beginning to panic slightly about the amount of things to do before then. Work, garden, house maintenance, social life(!). I borrowed a water blaster, to clean the house, but it took a lot of paint off, so I am now touching up all the bare wood. Not too hard on the white weatherboards, but the dark green on the front window frames (sash windows) never adheres well. Probably it absorbs too much heat and blisters. I am gradually replacing it with a dark green oil stain for fences instead. That soaks into the wood.

Gorgeous autumn weather - clear vibrant air, long shadows, plants relaxing with moisture again after their stressful summer.

Must go do stuff!