Slowly, Slowly...

...because that's all I'm fit for at present.  Rumours of relative normality were a bit of an exaggeration, and I've had several weeks of no activity at all.  Mostly, that's been an energy thing, but the depression thing didn't want to be left out, so between them, I stopped working altogether.  In an attempt to shake the depression at least, I fished out a piece of green nuno felt which, frankly, looked somewhat unprepossessing, to the point of making me wonder why I hadn't just tossed it out.  A bit of stitch, using silk threads I got from Dale Rollerson at The Thread Studio in Australia, and had struggled to find a use for for some reason, made me change my mind somewhat.

I'd intended it to be a scarf, hence the shape and size, though in truth, it's not really long enough for that.  Those threads were perfect for what I wanted to do, picking up the areas of darker green, and adding a bit more colour.  Because this was a scarf, in intention at least, the shapes the dark green make are completely random, though one or two made me thing of Celtic motifs.  Here's a closer look at a couple of them...

Not enough stitch, though...and things had ground to a halt over the weekend, as I couldn't find any threads that would be appropriate for the body of the scarf.  Today, however, I found some cotton thread that, whilst not ideal, would have served.  And then, I realised that there was a couple more silk threads which, whilst not identical in type, had been dyed with the same dyes... so I thought... that's better...

So...that's the plan for the rest of the week.  Much as I'd like to blog more regularly, I'm afraid it's just not possible at present, until my energy levels improve.  I will let you see the finished piece, though.

Finding The Mermaid

Thank you for the comments yesterday.  I thought today I'd show you how I finished this off.  Here's what it looked like when I left it...

...and this is what it looks like now... so what has changed?

I started by adding a little more stitch to the bottom and to the top right.  I didn't want to completely feel the areas, but it felt somehow unbalanced as it was.  Then, I took a blue coloured pencil and worked my way round the edges of what I finally worked out is an abstract mermaid.  When that became clear, I then made a series of marks over the lilac with the same pencil, to suggest scales.  If you click on the image, you should be able to see them. I've since gone over some of them again, to make them more obvious.  I did contemplate stitch in some places, but felt it would be too much.

From the outset, I've had difficulty photographing this piece.  This time, I've deliberately increased the tone to let you see that one of the results of drawing round the edges of the lilac, was to introduce some green.  I knew the piece needed green, though it didn't seem to be logical or sensible.  Using the pencil, produced green where it hit the yellow areas.  It works.

So...is it finished?  I'm not sure.  But it is moving in the right direction, and I do feel a lot better about it.  I'll keep you updated if I do decide to add more.