spectacle

Staggering around the internet yesterday I came across the blog of Sheila Frampton Cooper with great images the quilt festival in  Houston. One of the winners in particular slayed me - "ElaTED" by Ted Storm. I remember a similar fascination with another one of her quilts, "Nocturnal Garden".

Then this blog post at Wonkyworld came into my radar and I finally did some research on "broderie perse"

Are you shocked that I would be absorbed by something so traditional? I have always loved chintz-the colors, the gloss, they all appeal to the Magpie brain.

The technique of clipping elements out of the whole cloth and reorganizing them to my own satisfaction and all that obsessively tiny stitching has grabbed me by the tiny attention span. I watched the video four times and still cannot get the buttonhole stitch..maybe if I watched it in the mirror.

I found a half napkin with my embroidered initials in the scrap basket. The reverse applique Easter eggs were raided from another UFO and the cranes clipped out of a scrap of chintz gifted to me some time ago..there were only about four whole birds left because I've been using up wings on other things. It's my day off and all I wanted to do was a little hand stitching.