I made this collaged slow-stitched piece at the end of December but failed to post it, apparently. My (S)MIL/neighbor is a quilter and she sometimes gives me scraps. I was sorting them into my color bags and noticed that none of the motifs were fully represented on a single scrap. This gave me the idea to collage them together. Because I hadn’t been crafting much, I wanted to at least make a slow stitched project, which resulted in this collaged piece. (Speaking of the color bags, I now have another Iris cart on order for my small scraps instead since I reach for them so very often these days. I love these – the drawers are containers with lids, though they do make a type with open top drawers, and I’ve nearly sorted all my supplies into the carts. This organization helps me be creative because I am not slowed down by finding things or by clean up. Totally worth the cost, in my opinion!)

I wasn’t making it for any reason, other than to do since I was caught in a creative slump, and that freed me up a little to explore some unusual decisions. Hence, the bird ended up on a leash. I wonder what their story is!

I wanted to add text, for no other reason than it simply wasn’t expected. I had no idea what, though. Looking at this project, I didn’t know what to do with it. It was a little bizarre, the colors strange. My half-outlined bits in black making some statement I didn’t quite understand. And then it occurred to me that our friend Bill may enjoy this, as he enjoys odd art. So, I’ve titled it “For Bill, Thus It Became Known”. (Spoiler alert, he liked it!) So, without telling him why, I asked him to give me a word he associated with rainy days. He picked “grey”. This was kind of mad-libbed considering I knew the text was about the person’s journey – clearly, they were walking somewhere. And that’s how my text became “To the grey”.

At this point, I knew Bill was going to receive it, and there was just a little something missing, so I tossed on the big buttons. I wanted to attach them somehow differently than the usual ways, and perhaps subconsciously, having watched all the X-Files recently, “grey” took on another meaning? I also wanted to mimic the text falling apart right at the end. Why? Absolutely no reason!