As December progresses, I’m thinking about the work I completed this year and all the reading I’ve done, and I think I’ll show you all my year in review. It is amazing to me how the work just kept coming and if you’ve come here occasionally to read what I have to say you will have seen most of it but it is always fun to see it collected in one space.
I started out the year stitching a self portrait, based on a photograph, I used thread I had and as I got closer to finishing I decided I didn’t really like the brown all that much and it was clear that it was a fairly close resemblance so I decided I didn’t need to finish this one.
This was the first iteration of a crocus photo as spring began. But I wanted it to have some stitching around the paper so added some needle lace to create some texture and to practice my needle lace stitches.
Next up was a collage project that was some kind of still life.
This was the first in a series that is organized under the word Window.
The second piece I did with Window in mind was this collage paper and fabric weaving with photos and words added.
Then I worked on a self portrait that was more than just a face. It developed from this piece in style,windows that were about me. It was mostly magazine pictures and strips of one of my own colourful paintings. I thought long and hard about it for it felt a bit simple, rather like a student assignment but in the end I have enjoyed looking at it over and over again for it is all me but not all of me… it has things that I like and eat, and places I love and things that I do as well. My polar bear ,Earth element energy and the words describe some of my interior landscapes. I really like the way all these pieces came together.
There came a challenge to do a collage with a butterfly, I was traveling while I stitched this butterfly on a small previously slow stitched watercolour painted piece of silk, then I added the paper pieces.
All the time these small projects were being worked on I was also enjoying stitching my Arctic Fox, which is my animating spirit for the Fire elements of my life. There have been times as she watches me that I have felt perhaps there was too much Fire energy in my life this year, but I really loved stitching her.
There was one more small project that has a lot of textural stitching using a variety of different threads to create a section of tree trunk that is also a window where new growth begins. It was meant to represent the idea of home, thus the words embroidered down the side that say ‘Home is where we grow’
This piece may grow a companion piece based on another photo of a twisted tree trunk but it will not likely be started until next year