The inspiration for this new project comes from three sources. The first is the arrival of the new collection 'Ruby Star Shining' from Melody Miller that I featured in my last stash note. I can't really start working with this before I have done something with Melody's last collection, Ruby Star Spring. This is a lighter version of the Kokka typical cotton linen blend and thus has a wonderful drape. It doesn't really lent itself well to bag making but very good to attire and of course quilts, always quilts. This is the collection that features those wonderful pixelated large bees.
The second source of inspiration was the wonderful bag quilt that Siobhan made during the Auriful challenge and that I spotted on the Fat quarterly blog.
And the third source of inspiration came from a fantastic linen remnant find at the Cloth House in Soho for a bargain of GBP 8. It is the piece at the bottom of the pile in the picture below. It is so gorgeous and with 1.50 x 1.10 the perfect size for the back of a quick blanket/throw/bag quilt or whatever you want to call it.
So I added another half meter of lighter linen for some sashing and some silk remnants I found in another shop in Soho and started piecing. After a while I decided to leave some of the brighter silks out of the equation in favour of the natural linen with the exception of one stripe of dark aubergine coloured silk in the lower half of the piece
My original plan was to then just sew the front to the linen back in a bag style fashion (right sides together, sew all around, leave a whole to turn the hole thing, close hole, done) without any wadding or quilting. I just want a light blanket of this gorgeous cotton/linen/silk blend that I can use when it gets just that little bit cool in the evening during the summer months (damm.... I just thought I lived somewhere where there is actually a long hot sweaty summer....). But then the lovely Corinne from Tikki Ltd made a comment that one could embroider the bees and that caught my attention and the thought did not want to go away anymore.
So I found myself sitting on my sofa last Sunday evening with an array for No 8 Perle cotton, my embroidery hoop doing some long long forgotten cross stitching. And I found I really enjoy it..... so I guess this isn't the quick project I imagined it to be after all.
I used the following Finca Perle Cotton for Cross Stitching: No 2711
(lilac), 1485 (pale orange), 3670 (petrol), 2615 (pale lilac), 1742
(Pink), 8080 (dark brown) and DMC Mouline stranded cotton in 902
(Aubergine).
