Friday, February 20, 2009

Exercise or Adventure?

I thought long and hard (30 seconds) about what to call this entry. At first I thought it should be called an exercise – a stretching exercise - because that’s what I did – I stretched and exercised my creative brain. But oh! no, no, no. Exercise conjures up visions of huffing and puffing, heaving and sweating, moaning and groaning, and words of “Do I have to?” And exercise is WORK!

So I decided ‘adventure’ was a much better word. So here goes: I went on an adventure recently.

For ages I have been fascinated by stumpwork but felt it would be too difficult, too expensive, and require a learning curve I was not willing to undertake. So the other day, I went outside my safe zone and exercised (oops! I mean challenged) my creative brain and attempted stumpwork. And am I glad I did! Some dimension and texture can be obtained by stitching alone but, WOW!!! by adding stumpwork, the fiber picture jumps out – 3D, in fact.

Here is my first attempt –

Honey Bee Skep by Liz Turner Diehl


Some of my favorite motifs are bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and ladybugs. Does that make me a bug lover?

What was your latest adventure?

10 comments:

  1. Fabulous! I keep saying I'm going to give stumpwork a go, I just haven't gotten around to it.

    My latest adventure is quilting.

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  2. Lovely!

    My Latest Adventure is Cross Stitch :) Thats how I found your blog *l*

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  3. My "comfort zone" has been cross stitch. But I am going on an adventure with a biscornu.
    At sometime I need to venture off to tat!
    I love your beehive!

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  4. Wow! That's beautiful! I'll have to check that out. I've heard of it, but didn't know it was such a pretty technique! Thanks for sharing:)

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  5. Great project and an excellent outcome for your grand adventure. :)

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  6. This is adorable!!! I guess it is worth it to be adventurous once in a while~

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  7. Totally gorgeous! Love it Love it Love it!

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  8. This little ornament was also my first foray into stumpwork. LTD has helped many of us have new adventures!

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  9. Your stumpwork is lovely! Be sure if you're a bug lover, you will enjoy stitching them in stumpwork! Don't know of you are familiar with Jane Nicholas Stumpwork. You can find here - http://www.janenicholas.com/index.php. She has 2 lovely books one on dragonflies and another on stumpwork beetles. I am a keen stumpwork stitcher myself and will be back here for some more inspiration. Regards from sunny South Africa

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  10. Absolutely love the beehive! Would like to know what you did, if you wouldn't mind sharing. I collect anything bees, beehives, honeycomb. Please let me know if you could. Can't agree more with you on the motifs - trying to track down a lot of hard to find kits that have bees while trying to design my own!

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