Well, I've nearly recovered from spending last week at our annual NEOS (North East Open Studios) exhibition. I always spend the week at the exhibition with my embroidery machine, showing people how it works and explaining machine embroidery. It's always a lot of fun but I don't understand how just sitting and talking should be so exhausting!
One of the pieces I exhibited was a cheerful Mexican-inspired panel, which started life because of my friend Cherri's current fascination with sun faces. I designed a few suns for her to use in a quilt, and while I was doing it decided that they reminded me of sun faces in Mexican folk art. So I thought about using some of them myself in a Mexican panel. I'd already designed a lot of Mexican folk art-inspired designs, so I assembled four of the new suns into a small panel and surrounded them with bird designs from my old collection. Then, just in case it was looking too simple, I designed a further outside ring of plant and flower designs, and started to stitch everything out, intending to exhibit the finished panel at NEOS
However time began to catch up with me. Just the four suns and the 12 birds came to 16 squares to be stitched together, and if I'd added the outer ring of flowers it would have been 36 separate designs in total, and I just didn't have time to do all that. So I just left it at 16 birds and suns, and I might add the outer ring of flowers later
The Mexicana panel
The photo is of the unmounted panel, but here it is framed, along with another piece, a vase of flowers that I haven't yet posted here. So now all I have to do is find the time to do the final 20 squares and sew everything together…
The Mexicana at the exhibition
Fantastic job! I love the birds with the sun’s.
Another fantastic NEOS in the Glen with some beautiful creations from everyone. Nice talking to you again Mia and seeing your wonderful designs. Looking forward to your next postings thank you for all your freebies .
Mia, love the suns and birds panel. The vase of flowers gives inspiration to do something similar and hang it on a wall, to remind us that winter will not last and summer flowers will be here again. Thank you for sharing your work with us.
Thank you so much for the lovely pansies. I’m moving from New York to Ohio, so crazy with packing. Will write more in a month or two when settled. 🙁
I love the suns! The birds are pretty awesome, too.
I’m glad NEOS was good this year and that you picked up some commissions. Not that you were less than busy, already, though.
😉