Collaboration with Anonymous Series: 2023-Ongoing

This is an ongoing project where I find incomplete embroideries that have been abandoned, and complete them in my own way.

I wrote a bit about this project at the beginning here. These pieces take a while and I work on them in between other projects, so this page will be updated with new work as I have it!

Coast Refracted - 2024

The completed work is 8 inches in height and 6 inches wide. The starting piece was a very carefully done cross stitch on pale blue Aida fabric. I didn’t love the fabric — it reminded me of shop cloths - and so I wanted to cover it all up. I also wanted to add a lot of texture. The beading accomplishes that, and I used many raised embroidery stitches as well.

The House of Flowers - 2023

The completed piece is 12 inches in length and 9 inches wide, approximately.

The original piece looked to me like an experimental piece that was quickly abandoned. I wanted to preserve the happy color scheme and expand on the floral theme, which is a favorite of mine. This is mostly embroidery with a bit of applique, also made from reclaimed fabrics.

Crazy Mixed Up Alphabet Sampler - 2023

The completed piece is 7.5 inches square.

This was the first piece of this project — I didn’t take a proper before pic! I’d actually embroidered some on the “starting” piece before I decided what I was doing. The original piece had the cross stitched “ABCD” and seemed to go off the rails with the teal blue “E” — at an angle below the A and B. That “mistake” apparently led to the piece being abandoned. I began stitching the rest of the alphabet and then repeated the letters along with other embroidery, in a bit of play on the very proper alphabet sampler that young girls once made.