Banksia Panel

We had a really wild thunderstorm on Friday night and the sky was a brooding deep blue grey. I tried to photograph it but it looks relatively mild to how it really looked- the rose in the foreground was like a beacon and the light was really eerie.

I am making a long banksia wallhanging. I have lots of banksias in my garden and they come in many different colours ranging from a soft licheny green to deep rust and maroon. The Banksia I have photographed is one of my favourites as the stamens are gold, rust and red coloured.Unfortunately the actual bush has become tall and straggly. However I am always trying to capture this particular one in stitching. I have hand dyed the back ground panel and printed it with bracken and beech leaves with gold textile ink, to liven up the middle ground. Then I overlay with applique shapes and then stitch these before I start quilting when I will go over some of the stitching again. I stitch first because if I do that in the quilting process I lose a lot of the loft of the batting and thereby texture.

I did manage to stagger to 50,000 words for nanowrimo but the story is not finished- in fact I have no idea how it will end as the characters seem to have taken over .