Needleturn: First Steps

A blouse/tunic that started to have holes serves as a canvas. I have one front finished.

The other side. This is the first step: deciding which way the labyrinth will flow and then with safety pins, attaching strips and pieces of fabric.

I considered working from the top down, but I have a pocket placed at the bottom (the dark maroon). So I'll be working from the bottom up. I can always add on other strips later, so length doesn't matter too much.

















Sometimes I look at the fabrics and have no idea where to start. The trick is to begin at the easiest point of entry. In this case, the lower left edge seemed the most accessible.

Once I had stitched down the far left edge, I could take out the safety pin and begin cutting the dark red. Then I cut and stitched down a short strip of the blue.

Then I turned back the bottom of the blue, which was still unstitched, to get at the maroon and stitch it down.

Once the maroon was stitched down, I went back to stitching down the dark blue.

As I stitched on this corner last night, I remembered that I really do like to do this and prefer appliqué stitching over embroidery, for some reason. Possibly because it's a bit faster. Thoughts of a large labyrinth, a majestic and monumental piece, have crossed my mind lately, but for the moment a number of other pieces must be finished. Like the pomegranate tree.