Creating Cheer and A Decision

Keep your face to the sunshine
And you cannot see a shadow.
Helen Keller

I had put together the makings from some smaller projects to take on a trip that didn’t happen. So, I decided to follow through with some of them at home. One result is this cheerful little pin pillow.

I chose the yellow tones to brighten up my days as I stitched. Perhaps Mother Nature took the hint as there was a lovely display of sunshine on my living room floor as I photographed this!

I got the idea for the little cushion from Karen Ruane, my online stitching instructor and friend. She calls them pin pillows and they do work quite well as what we in American would call pin cushions. However, I have also found them to perfect for other purposes. One of mine is now a pillow for a certain stuffed animal that sleeps in my granddaughter’s home. I am using another as a resting spot for my eyeglasses which I unfortunately need to reach for first thing in the morning to find my way through a day.

Speaking of Karen, she is offering a new class in April which deals with what she calls ledgers. It is about creating paper journals of ideas for projects, patterns, stitch combinations that you might like to explore. A unique idea for those of us who like to just plunge in and start cutting and sewing! As always, the material is presented through a series of videos where the student is ‘a fly on the wall’ while Karen stitches and chats. I find it a very effective learning method for me. If you want to learn more, you can visit Karen’s website.

And a decision!

I was overjoyed with the response to my query last week on To Crop or Not To Crop. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspectives with me. When we create a piece, I can get so tied into the process and critiquing it that I fail to see the finished project. That sounds funny but it is true. I look at what I have created and I see the areas where my stitching wasn’t quite up to par. One of the fun results of asking for opinions was hearing what each of you saw in my piece.

I waited a few days and considered all the different viewpoints. Then I stepped back and made a decision. Here is the final piece.

It wasn’t easy to decide. But, in the end, I decided to go with the version that best caught what attracted me to taking the original photo – the flow of the water around the two rocks.

Of course, now I have to come up with a title! Any thoughts on that are very welcome!  🙂

Linking to Off the Wall, Friday with Nina Marie Sayre so please check out what other artists have been doing.