continuing...

as for everyone, it's been busy days here...

I do love this time between Christmas and New Years though, the days slip by in a relaxed, easy kind of way

the first few are spent tidying away the remnants of  wrapping and decorating: snippets of paper and ribbon, ornaments that have lost their hangers, stacks of books that needed to be moved to make room for company, etc. etc.

the last two have been spent organizing my studio, preparing for what comes next

I'm still working on my Christmas ledger, snatching moments of time here and there, laying out page compositions only to sweep them aside and try again

the latest one was a title page for the trees... Christmas trees, of course, but also trees of the winter forest 

I found a vintage Christmas card, one of a half-dozen I bought in an antique store in Burnaby about ten years ago - they will all find their way to these pages eventually, but for now, this one has found a home

I also sorted out all the green embroidery thread I use the most and have been grouping them and wrapping thread cards to add in the days and weeks to come as I do yet more stitch samples

in the meanwhile, I had a few samples I had begun of poinsettia's that I wanted to work on... thinking about greenery, inspired by this small tag...

plain outline sketches, templates, ideas for stitching petals and leaves - I can't stitch as fast as the ideas come but at least I'm creating a place to record them

the challenge is not to get too precious about the samples but once I start one I have this notion that it has to be "right"... so I ask myself,  is this meant to be a record of the development of the idea, or the culmination? 

for the one above, the plan is to stitch a different piece of greenery in the spaces between the petals to illustrate varying options... below is a sample where I want fabric leaves but the linen/cotton fabric is too dark of a green for my liking and the leaves, too "predictable" so I am going to remove them... the next choices are below - pale sage greens, right side or wrong? 

these are the decisions, and ultimately, the samples, that I am continually revising

what I know for sure is I love the petals done this way and I'm pretty happy with the centre though I think it needs to be more open - I want to sample a variety of threads for centres so I'm working on a plan for that, both the doing and the presentation

I'm enjoying this work very much, it's a nice way of easing back into making but it is also nice to finally be continuing on with some of these stitched samples that have been kicking around for many, many years 

I'll be working on it all through the year I think, getting what I already have safely attached and developing some of the ideas further

I'll leave you now, with best wishes for the year ahead...

so many of the struggles of the old year will be continuing on into the new, there's no magic re-set button for any of it or any of us but I look forward to it just the same... optimistic, realistic, accepting, and determined to do better... seems like a lot of contradictions in terms but I suppose I'm like that

peace and goodwill to all of you

and a heartfelt thank you for being here

ever present

for as long as I can remember, making things for Christmas has been my favourite 

I love everything about it and every year I am inspired anew

a grey folder has been home to various templates and a pile of drawings, lists of thread colours and stitching notes... in another basket is a small stack of stitch samples

the other day, sifting through it all, I thought it might be nice to gather it all together and put it into a book... 

a Christmas ideas book

I began with the snowflakes

a stitch sample I made a couple of years ago

threads I've used for them plus this year's woad

several months ago I bought a journal made of khadi paper 

 I had been wanting khadi paper for a different stitching project but it was sold out on every website I looked at except one that had journals... the price was comparable to a package of paper of the same size so I shrugged and thought why not? 

easy enough to take apart 

but then it arrived and was far too beautiful to do any such thing

glad of that now as it's the perfect book for this

below, a page from the book torn into four pieces, one each for sampling stitch, sketch, script and watercolour

I've only ever stitched on khadi paper so I need to test my paint and pens to see what works and what doesn't 

more stitching and samples of cardstock

next is sketching, a pattern page and some quotes and phrases

planning has begun on the pages for trees

there are so many ways to stitch them - these are just a few of the ways I've done them over the years

looking at them, thinking about what it would look like if I stitched them as forest, had me remembering these words from the poem by Robert Frost, which led me to a notebook of Christmas and winter quotes, phrases, and poems, copied out in calligraphy twenty-two odd years ago whilst taking a course in calligraphic writing

I'm tired of having things scattered around the studio, having to search here and there to find them when I need them

the inspiration pile is growing by the minute as I remember bits of stationery, vintage Christmas cards, gift tags I've saved for years

it'll be nice to have one place for all of it