Pages of Inspiration

A non-stitcher friend of mine recently asked me where I get my inspiration from (something lots of people have asked me over the years), and if I ever run out of ideas. OH CONTRAIRE!! I told her that my problem is having TOO MANY IDEAS and consequently having to tell them all to quit crowding me, and to take a number and I'll get around to them eventually!

Case in point: this morning I took the time to browse through some home design magazines. In a spring issue of Traditional Home I came across several intriguing possibilities for future designs and I thought I'd share them with you, to show you how my "designing mind" works....


This is a large Henry Moore lithograph that caught my eye. I immediately translated this composition to squares of stitchy patterns and abstracted shapes. Can you see how well this might be adapted as an abstract canvaswork design? It could be large or small, monochromatic or multi-colored too....


Okay, focus on the wallpaper in this photo.It's a Victorian-looking wallpaper that struck me as an excellent format for a geometric canvaswork piece. Picture a large diamond shape, made up of four of the smaller diamond shapes (with the medallions at each intersection). That creates four diamond boxes to fill with something or other -- blackwork? flowers? intricate geometrics?? Hmmmmmm...lots of in-ter-est-ing poss-i-bil-i-ties.


Now this photo caught my eye because of the large floral painting on the wall. It reminds me of some of the happy, graphic, floral painted canvases we stitchers are seeing more and more of in the needlepoint market. Just imagine what a big stitched floral canvas would look like in place of this painting. And why don't these interior designers use some needlepoint on their walls? Hey, You Guys, NEEDLEWORK IS ART TOO!!!


Is this a happy room or what?!? My eye was immediately drawn to the big square canvases of color cubes. I'M SEEIN' BLOCKS OF STITCHING HERE - each done in a different color and stitch pattern. Picture a series of canvases (12" x 12"? 16 x 16"? or even larger? whoa, how about stitching these on 13 ct canvas?) with these same collections of colors, but stitched! They could be monochromatic, as stitch or color studies; or they could be color family studies. Either way, a stitcher could have a really great time working on a series like this.

Sooooo, you see my dilemma as a designer? I'm equally intrigued by all of those pictures. Which of these ideas do I pursue first? Because, trust me, I wanna try ALL of them! And eventually I will, but for now I'll dog-ear the pages in the magazines, scribble some notes to myself in my little notebook, and then get back to stitching on the projects I have going now. If I stitch a little bit faster, maybe I can get those done and then start designing something new next week....Stay tuned, Stitchers!!