the devil's in the details

The devil being trixie element of the work, the thing that pulls you in and make you go "jeeze" or "yuk" or makes the hair in your arms stand up.


It could also refer to the pitfall of of focusing on the tiny things and letting the big picture get lost in all those details.

I was just reminded by these colors of Taken by the Night and the need to loosen up, take an unexpected turn or two and slow down.

It's a good thing there are only 24 hours in a day.

and speaking of details, remember the bead show I went to awhile back?

I cobbled these earring together myself. Sea opals, freshwater pearls and silver and I am satisfied. 

full moon measures

I found this little moon wandering around the studio and decided it was an appropriate day to put it work in the new piece. Now I'm off to snag some embroidery thread and needles, fresh for this project. Stitching has begun!
I also discovered ACRES more of the woven, gridded cotton that this piece is based on...lots of plans for others in a series.

the chase is on

Sometimes the horse bolts and you have to chase it down with saddle and bridle.


It's raining and cool here for the first time in ages. Contemplation time. No more false moves..the stage is set.

the following studies were done with an ancient paint program, PSP5 if you can believe it. I will be sad when it stops working.

I could do this all day but a handful gives me an idea of how I want to go with the stitching. As much as I may like or dislike any one of these, the finished piece will only refer to the digital image, not copy any one entirely.

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a good sundays work

I've been up before the sun putting little bits of cloth together until I decide I liked the way things look.


The bristle of all the pins is distracting so my next step is to baste the whole piece with great leaping jumps of a single strand of blue thread..easy to cut and pull out as I need to along the way.

It's very easy to lose sight of the whole picture during this part of the process. Strokes for the sake of taking them won't add up.


All the cloths I've chosen are loose and open - the thread and needle pass through with almost no resistance - quite probably more than one of those little red spots is my blood.

So easy to be sidetracked by the juicy splendor of the individual fabrics but it will be easy to make design revisions before settling in the stitching that ties everything together, the marks that will make it whole.





1300 posts. really? 
Should I throw a party?

making do do

I decided to start working with these (and cloth from some previous batches) as they are, which is outside of my comfort zone in hue, tone and other attributes. Having been creatively stagnant for a while now I'm going to think of these raw materials as if they washed up onto the beach of my desert island- and there's that little creepy dude in the pointy shoes serving drinks again.