Embroidered Collage

  If you've been reading my blog since September you might might remember the beginning of this piece.  I never took it farther than the small pic to the left until I picked it up last week to start seeing what kind of layering I could do, taking it further than I would have ever considered possible just those ten months ago.

It began as an 8"x10" piece of paper from Somerset Studio.  The green piece adhered on the left was from Melissa's paper swap last year.  I added writing in different colors of pen, some of it smeared when I put the final varnish on.  I used multiple layers of paint on the embossed paper motif, printing images from it onto the background before I finally let it dry enough to apply. 

I thought about leaving off the stitches, since the piece seemed complete without them, but since part of the point is combining the multiple media I wanted to go and do it anyway, even if it messed up.  But it really enhanced and completed the piece.  Some stitches blend into the background and some are clearly evident.  I used perle cottons and it made me want to go out and buy every color of Caron's Wildflowers - beautifully variegated perle cottons.

I'm really happy with how "Ceiling Ruminations" turned out.