A little bit of stitch

I seem to be taking a dreadfully long time with this. It's the Branch Stich Book and I have been neglecting it badly, busy with other things and with trying to maintain enough energy to actually get anything done at all! However, I'm back in touch with it again now - do you find that? You seem to miss some connection with what you're trying to do so it goes on the back burner for a while, though this really should have taken priority! My stitch is blanket stitch, it's a really nice opportunity to work with variations of one stitch, also to try out different threads from ones store. 

I've also jut done the first year's account balancing act as treasurer of our local branch. It doesn't need ot be in 'til next month, but The Lakes approach so I want to make sure all is good before we go away. 

Everything balanced, hurrah hurrah ..... I'm very pleased with myself

Detail

Just thinking,

looking at the patterns and flows of colour, trying to work out what will enhance

 where to go, what to stitch and what to leave

Suspended from the floor lamp in my (horrendously untidy) study in lieu of a design wall 

Those swayings away from True, across and down; the not quite lined up. Do I straighten them out or do they add a slight movement within the grid structure, a bit of unrule

True ... Truth ...

Squares of colour

I've been doing a little stitching, quietly in the evenings and at our first Studio 11 class last week. This started as something I took with me to Birmingham so I'd have some bits of cloth to play with in the evenings after looking at all those lovely quilts during the day. The squares began life as a tea towel, lovely loose weave linen, worn with years of smoothing cups and plates dry in my grandmother's hands. I used it in my first year with Christine as something to experiment with, to learn from, and to see the different way in which linen took up colour. I wasn't happy with the inital results - eventually the linen was torn in two and treated slightly differently on each half, way back here, but cut into squares, rearranged on some dark blue linen, stitched down with little stitches that match the background colour, I hope perhaps it has some potential. I think I've managed to keep the squares reasonably ... well square ... two layers of soft woven linen can surely wriggle about a bit in the hand when they're being stitched together. I rigged up the giraffe (OK it's a craft stand really, but you can see what I mean) to hold my embroidery frame and that made the stitching go a lot easier. I'd like to add some embroidered stitch, perhaps a little sparkle, something to enhance what's already there, but not intrude or detract. Simple. Careful. Sympathetic.

What happens now, of course, is I get the awful heebie jeebies, having got so far, and totally stall because I can't work out what to do next. To me, it says light falling to the forest floor, other might see different. What do you think?