The Big Stitch starts to take shape

Showing you a couple of details from different parts of the current big stitchwork, which will frame out to 16 x 20, I think, once it's stretched on artist's stretchers.  Currently it's stretched and mounted on a heavy backing, 17 x 30

from its first iteration on exhibit, and I've left it on there to keep it stretched while I work.  This makes beading and stitching a bit more difficult, because you can't do a stabbing motion -- it all has to be surface movement, which is a bit hard on the fingers, but it's working out okay.

It's starting to get to the stage where I think I know what I'm doing.  The major shapes are shaping up as I go, with beading and couching, some gold work, some floss, but the painted original I think I'll leave alone, and just make my adaptations with beads and thread. 

This one is too big to take in to stitch in meetings, though, so it has to be a homebound item.  For stitch-in purposes, I am about to stretch cheesecloth over a frame as one layer of another piece, this one a bit smaller and more portable, as a support for the sea wrack pale green crochet I showed you earlier.  There will be pearls and amber in this one, I think, as well as various other ideas.

And since this current big work is a piece destined for my April exhibit, where the same concept will be rendered in different media,it will probably be paired with a great big watercolor I painted years ago, and need to find a big enough frame for.  Similar concept-- large yellow marsh flower and a lot of green foliage. 

I painted this without any particular flower in mind, just the impressions I retained from walks around the marsh, and was surprised when it was exhibited and a naturalist friend identified the flowers and foliage! I was nearer to nature than I realized.