More Markal and some stitching

The other Markal paintstiks I ordered arrived so I did some more playing.

I taped some textured wallpaper to the worktable with a piece of black cotton on top and made some rubbings with various colours. Somehow it reminds me of the maps you used to see where the countries were in different colours.

This was another rubbing with different wallpaper and some Cosmic Shimmer sprays misted on top.

And this is an abstraction taken from a photograph of an old rowing boat on the river.

I bought Maggie Grey's newest book, 'Stitches, Straps and Layers' a while ago and made a strap by embellishing some wool roving and fancy yarn onto acrylic felt with added built in stitching patterns from the sewing machine. I may make this into a belt, or maybe cut it up; haven't decided yet.

And a close up.

The thread was from the Pommie Bag won from Dale at the Knitting and Stitching Show.

The online classes to accompany Maggie's book and the Lynda Monk/Carol McFee book 'Stitching the Textured Surface' started on Monday and I've already been having a go at the extra techniques. Sorry I can't show you what I've been doing - you have to buy the books to find out for yourself but lots of messy fun!

Off to Italy on Monday. I'm excited but also more than a little nervous at studying with these two behemoths of the textile world. We shall see........