I have been art journaling for self care for about 5 years now. I have become used to how intuitive art can express my unconscious and my emotions. Until a few days ago I didn’t realise how much this would also be reflected in my stitching.
I made a really calming piece last night whilst watching Tom Ford’s film ‘Nocturnal Animals’.
If you haven’t seen it it’s quite dark and violent. When I am drawing mandalas in front of a thriller my shapes get very small and tight.
Looking at the above piece now makes me feel calm- I made four with the same pattern of stitches. Normally I get bored doing the same pattern over 4 patches and need to mix the texture and colour up.
I can’t remember what I was watching when I made this one
But I remember being engaged with the plot and finding it stress full. I think I detached from the Ford film because I had to make my self feel remote and mindful to stay with the film. There was a lot of time spent lingering on Amy Adams face…….
I am working on my 5th quilt at the moment and am making small patches and then attaching them individually in a search for ways not to prick my fingers so regularly. I like working like this, the contained space and with my sense of design being restricted. However, I am also having to have another piece on had when it makes me feel too constricted. At the moment this is an apron with big loose circles.
Quilt number 5 – it taxing my design skills. In the last few quilts I have had an overal idea in mind and I just needed to step back from those every so often to check how my ‘vision’ was coming along.
Number 5 is different. I keep having to think about the balance of colour and texture- I can’t just do 5 patches without placing them next to those already attached and thinking about how I need to do the next 5. I am quite pleased with the results. Though some patches have had to have extra bits attached because they were too plain or I didn’t like one patch next to its neighbor.
This was just blue crosses but it was tooo plain and just jumped out at me……
Number 5 so far
I am laughing at my self – I just did some reading around Fords film – I recognised how beautiful it was and that some of the scenes were amazingly framed – with stunning art in – I hadn’t realised that they were originals …..
tesswyatt's Blog 
GORGEOUS work!!! Do you work on the patches individually and then assemble them together? Do you attach the patches to each other or some sort of underlying structure?
Thanks, Emie
Hi Emie I have been stitching these patches individually and sewing them with running stitch around the edges and then lines of running stitch across the patch- attaching the patches to what ever I am using as a base – in this case an old cot quilt. I machine washed and tumble dried the quilt and the patches didn’t fall off. I hope that helps