Not sure whether I’m friends with this exercise or not! It’s really quite a big piece and is taking a lot of stitching.
The best bit was definitely adding the first great big purple line. I had to use an awl to avoid the paper splitting but it just pops against the yellows and oranges.
I wanted the purple to be more prominent but not to obliterate the colours underneath, so decided to add some small magazine pieces. These were images of berries and leaves and I had to take one piece off and rearrange some others so that the image itself wasn’t the focus. This may have been a bit of a mistake, but it did spur me on with some new patches to respond to. Hand stitching is certainly hard work and takes discipline, especially for me as I recognise I like to work quickly, but ‘slow work’ is probably something we could all do with engaging in more. It’s textile mindfulness.
Doing this exercise has tuned me into things I like and don’t. I don’t really like the grid below, but I do like the machine stitched purple curves which I didn’t think I would. Most of all, I just love running stitch and finding lines that seem to emerge with the gaze. This I DO like!
Rachael Singleton 
Fantastic, should be required reading for any textiles based student. Very well done. X
I love your textile Mindfullness xxx
Seemed apt. What about mindful felting!?
This is lovely! Great colors too. How do you manage to hold the paper while hand stitching? I wouldn’t think you would put it in a hoop or scrunch up the extras like you would with fabric.
It is difficult to hold, but there are a few holes in it so I’ve managed to get my hand in them which helped. Also, it’s on lining paper which takes a beating and although it does get scrunched it seems to survive! 🙂