Retail Therapy

I felt better yesterday than I have since I took that fall (two weeks ago now?). So naturally I used my better health to expose myself to fresh toxins. 😉 I find it hard to get creating again after a full stop like the one caused by my accident. I thought some retail therapy might help.

One of our local quilt shops is having a liquidation sale. 😢 My understanding is that they hope to reopen in a new location later this year. I don't get to shop there often but I don't want to see them shut down entirely. Every shop has it's own personality and therefore a slightly different selection of prints from others in the area. But it wasn't fabric that went into my basket first.

I thought this set of stencils might give my embroidery practice a boost. I also bought a chalk pencil and just the one skein of size 5 perle cotton. Couldn't resist that color!

I didn't have any specific project in mind when I went into the store so I ended up just buying yardage that appealed to me. The first bolts came from their Halloween shelf.

There's two yards of the orange batik (which did not come from the Halloween shelf) and a yard each of the spider web print and the orange below it. The two greens and the blue are half-yard cuts and  the rooster print is only a fat quarter. It will be interesting to see where these end up. At the moment I don't have a clue. However, the stencils had the desired effect.

This is what page two of my Year in Stitches sampler looked like before I injured myself:

Now it looks like this:

Remember, this is just a place to practice and play. I marked a few lines with the stencils, like for the snail shell and the twig below.

The hearts coming down the right side are pretty much freehand, each one created with a pair of offset fly stitches.

The first hearts I made (in red, at the top) were backstitched. I used Nancy's hand dyed floss exclusively on this sampler.

This sampler page might be done now. I think I can probably live with the negative spaces that remain. Which brings up the question of how to approach the next page in this year-long effort. I don't think I want to do another grid like I did for the first page. At least, not one that tight (2" square). I think I'd be more comfortable with some kind of structure over a completely blank canvas though. Watch this space!