Vintage Vibes

I had thought that today would be spent working in the garden but the North East wind sent me scurrying into the warmth of the workroom. It took me an hour to frame up 'The Garden at Number Six' and then without much thought I took a piece of white cotton from my stash. I cut it to the same size as one of my tables 60" x 30" and dipped it into a watery acrylic mix, faintly greenish blue just to knock the glaring white back a little.

I gathered some vintage papers  and some matte medium.

And randomly stuck some torn papers to the background.

I then stuck some stronger coloured circles of paper again quite randomly. I may want these to show through as a contrast in places.

The rest of the day has been devoted to laying, tearing, cutting pieces from my vintage stash to form a pleasing pattern.

This layering up will take at least another day and then I will start to invisibly stitch it all down. the next stage will be overprinting the whole piece and then in with paints and rubs. I think I will add lots of hand-stitching and maybe some free-motion machine stitch. Somewhere in the process I think I will lay it onto some soft batting. My aim is to keep the whole thing 'raggy' so that I can stitch with it bunched up in my hands. Damp stretching afterwards should square the whole thing up again.

 I want to keep it as pale as possible but I will need to put some soft tones in to give it some sense of depth. It's progress depends on the weather - I am definitely a fair weather gardener.