Stitch Club - October

This month's topic at Stitch Club was embellishing printed fabrics.  Techniques such as broderie perse and crazy quilt patchwork were included.

Hand embroidery work has been a soothing pastime for me recently, so I was interested in exploring an October project.  I found a nice fat quarter that featured a moth motif and some surrounding floral designs that seemed like a promising place to start.  I wasn't sure what parts of the fabric I wanted to use, so I cut around one entire repeat of the print, thinking I could trim it down later when things were more defined.  But as soon as I cut into the fabric, the moth and flowers were no longer what I saw.

 Here's where I began:

And here's where I ended up:

My project became a calavera, a representation of a Mexican sugar skull for

  Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dead.

I'm calling her Clara, 

after Clare of Assisi, patron saint of needleworkers.  She is keeping watch over my sewing room.

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