The challenge this week at TextileArtist.org is hosted by Emily Jo Gibbs. She works with appliqué and suggested we find an interesting stick – well my yard has more sticks than you could shake a forest at! I spent a short time outside looking for just the right one – an interesting shape that would also cast a nice shadow, and with interesting texture. I brought about ten inside and narrowed it down to my friend The Stick based on how they looked on my table under the light I was going to be using as well as a comfortable size for stitching.

I followed Emily’s guide and gathered my supplies. I was trying to practice process so I thought ahead and gathered what I would want before I began.

Of course, my pain point is never thinking about finishing the piece. Because this challenge series has been mostly practice of techniques and ideas, I hadn’t been thinking about keeping any of them. However, I decided to keep this one hung on my wall so once again I found myself extra-challenged by figuring out what to do for finish after the fact. Nothing special – used my decorative felt and whipstitched it to the back with a little cord to hang.

I used straight stitches like Emily taught to apply the pieces, variating the colors for highlights and shadow. To create the lichen, I used wonky cross stitches and haphazard straight stitches in five different colors (white, beige, light green, light blue, and a bright blue). Then I selected a lady bug to bring it all to life! I had it in my stash for a crazy quilt, but it is from a very old game I think, and there isn’t a way to sew it. I don’t like using it, but I pulled out the glue.

I’ve really only appliquéd once, that I can think of (see the wedding gift here), but the idea of using this technique for a still life does interest me quite a bit. I may be exploring this again in the future! Thanks, Emily!