little hanging

Now Christmas is over and my lovely daughter has been and gone I can share this little something I made for her.

I blogged about it earlier in it's life here. It began as an experiment - a few scraps from the quilt top I was making using squares I had cut out pre rotary cutters and cutting mats. Many of these were from fabrics used by Mum to make dresses for herself before I was born, or for me as I grew. Mum was not a confident seamstress, her first dress, made to prove her usefulness to Dad before they were married, brought her out in a rash "all over", but she persevered being a very tenacious soul, and by the time I came along she was sewing with great accuracy and determination, though not with the confidence that she knitted. I cut up these bits of cloth when I was in my late teens, then packed them away in a bag and carried them around from place to place for about 30 years! Having finished the patchwork I sewed a few scraps together and gradually a little "picture" emerged as I experimented with some machine and some hand stitching.

Then I added a border from some remaindered curtain fabric I bought and another from some delicious velvet I found in Penrith.

I have backed the hanging with a panel from one of Mum's dresses. She probably wore this when she was carrying me, if not within her womb, at least when I was a baby. It seemed a poetic thing to give to Jen, now Mum is gone. Fabric new and old, fabric which enwrapped me now carrying my love to my own daughter, my stitches and Mum's combined to create a thing for someone we both love(d).

a patchwork of colours

And the stitches

The sky has become almost an exploded bargello pattern, as I've been trying to capture that shimmering quality it gets sometimes

There are little hesitant clouds of wear in the denim sky





french knot woodlands bordering the fields -






and a hedgerow that will extend into the borders once they're attached

Thought you should see the back

This always looks so tentative, as though the stitches were slipping away by themselves.
The piece is a mish mash of textiles - a corner of my old gardening jacket - I couldn't bear to throw away the soft worn corduroy; a piece of my daughters old jeans, cut up to patch newer ones that fit and the offcuts from a skirt of my Mums - the dark green bit on the front that defines the hedgerow. She wore it when pregnant with me, I found the trimmings when sorting through her stuff after her death - a sad and ongoing process, like domestic archaeology.

stitching Norfolk furrows

this little panel is coming along quite nicely.

It's just an experiment, inspired by a brief view of a landscape in Norfolk, which I managed to hold in my head until we got back to the hotel and I could get my sketchbook out. I've never done anything quite like this before, so it's all rather inspiring. Just playing really.

As I was stitching I realised there was a great glowing in the garden, radiating off the brick walls of the houses at the end. I went to the front of the house to find this wonderful sky. What beauty there is in this world.

Tomorrow I'm going here which could be very dangerous. Perhaps I should leave my debit card at home and only take cash!!

Crikey!

You put bits of fabric together, and this happens, unfinished as yet, but really rather surprising.







Ditto this. Again, unfinished, but my first attempt at just putting stuff together, in this case trying out stitches on my new sewing machine with scraps from my first quilt top.

All rather good fun!