#fancy!

A sort of illustration of a scene that was hinted at in the latest chapter of Fraternal Familial Fixation. Click the link to read. It's coming to an end soon ;)

Butterfly box with wood inlay by Maitland-Smith. Picture from the Invaluable auction where it was sold.

It's been a hard couple of years. My mom died suddenly, then a couple of days after I got back from bereavement, we were hit with the news that we would have to relocate to the headquarters or quit. We have always been a remote team. I'm not relocating, for a few reasons. So I'm going to be out of work, and the job market stinks. Perhaps unsurprisingly, creativity has gotten trampled underfoot, just trashed. But a few months ago, I started to feel better, and I wanted to make something. I love crazy quilts--the first one I ever made was when I was working on my therapy for PTSD. It made me laugh to make this kind of quilt when I was going through a mental health thing. It's something I really liked, because it doesn't have to be perfect, just interesting. So I've made 16 blocks; the fabrics are tacked down to the backing, ribbons have been added to all. The next stage is to do the embroidery over the seams. I'm not the most talented embroider, but it's not as disgraceful as it would be in, like, a sampler. After I get each block embroidered, then I'll join four blocks into a row, cover the seams between the blocks, then join the rows and embroider. THEN, I'll get to do the embellishment with metal stamping, beads, and crystals. Then there will be a thinner inner border and a wider outer border. The backing will added and inconspicuously attached with small stitches before finishing the edges. Lots of work, but it's fun. This is block #1.

Well, thank you for the gift!

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