Painting and Stitching
I have always loved sewing and it's a joy to bring stitching into my painting. We have quite a few big trees in the garden and around about in the lane. Their autumnal colours and winter trunk shapes never cease amazing me. When I'm doing a wool and thread picture, I usually paint first. Then I lay the wools on the paper in the shapes I want. The paper is carefully moved to the sewing machine and stitched trying to hold the wools in place. The stitching also makes interesting marks and patterns on the paper. It's often rather haphazard and uncontrolled! When I'm happy with the layout, I delicately glue any loose strands to the paper so the shapes are held in place.