Trying out my New Ribbon and Fields of Gold

 Look at these yummy silk ribbons I just received from Ribbonsmyth (thanks Ribbonsmyth and thanks to Monika at My Sweet Prairie for telling us about them).   They are lovely and light.  Some are variegated.   I just love the delicate colours!

Of course, I couldn't stop myself.  I had to experiment with them.  I have never embroidered with ribbon before and now I just want to make tiny flowers everywhere.   But I started with something simple.   Many years ago I remember seeing a photo of grass swirling up towards the sun.  The photo must have been up through the grasses.    So I came up with this little bit of embroidery using ribbon for the tops and embroidery threads for the rest.  It still needs finishing and pressing before I frame it.

  I also used some in an underwater piece I am working on - just for fun!

I finally finished and framed my hand stitched experiment with "underpainting" with fabric.   Starting with yellow orange background I stitched and stitched and stitched grasses over it with a river running through.  I call it Fields of Gold.   I am not quite satisfied with the way it looks.  I think I need to stitch through to the back in places (I think they call it quilting:) because it tends to balloon out at the bottom around the lupins and where I added extra batting to give it more depth.  But it sure filled a lot of evenings.

Fields of Gold

My eyes still get tired easily so I am trying to refrain from long periods of stitching.  I don't feel like I have accomplished much this winter.   And still have second eye to go.   Come May I hope I'll have two good eyes and lots of inspiration.

My large floral piece is still waiting by the machine for another try.   I think I'll focus on that one and my underwater rocks but I need a lot of confidence to tackle 'The Machine'.  I'd like to see the floral completed though.   Besides there will be lots of opportunity to add small embroidered flowers between the larger ones.

 I did machine stitch a carrying bag for one of my pieces - with bubble wrap and fabric (very roughly done) and was proud of myself nevertheless.  A member of my fibre arts group gave us a variation of this type of  bag for wrapping work to take to shows but I don't think I followed her instructions very closely...... Why is the bubble wrap on the outside?   Because I wanted the seam on the inside and was not able to sew through the wrap without fabric on top of it.   Next time I'll fold the fabric over the sides of the wrap so the bubble wrap is wrapped (no pun intended) before stitching.   Then I can put the wrap inside where it won't get ripped as easily.   Do you like the zebra duck tape used to hold the tie downs?

 So I don't get discouraged I plan to keep hand stitching some small embroidered florals as well.   I visualize tiny embroidered pieces with larger mat and frame around them.   I'm getting tired of using the ready made sizes of mats and frames available when the piece calls for a different size but custom framing is so expensive.    May try out a local framer I heard about recently.