Pina Colada

I have not long finished my third piece for the Sumptuous Surfaces class, run by Sharon http://www.pintangle.com/  And, yet again, I've made a folder sleeve using my piece as front adornment.  I have had such fun working the samples for this class, and also learnt a lot of interesting features about stitching, ie viewing and using stitches in different ways.

I am including a good close-up of the pineapple, so if you click onto the file and see it in it's original format you can get a good look at the stitch.  This stitch is called Vault Stitch, found in my Mary Thomas' Dictionary of Stitches.  It's original purpose is for canvas stitching, but bring it down to a finer level, mix up your thread colours, and hey presto, great texture for pineapples in my opinion.

I'm not going to go through the whole journal making procedure yet again, but will show you the back, so you can see how I've crinkled up the abaca tissue, lightly sprayed it with gold Moon Shadow Mist [a product purchased from my favourite store - http://www.thethreadstudio.com/  and just a small amount of machine quilting.  I'm not sure if the photographs will do the Moon Shadow Mist justice.  It adds just that flecked gold lustre to the surface of the folder.  I just love it.  This abaca is a slightly aqua blue/green, with golden yellow-brown mottling.  I tried to take some of the 'blue' off it via the Moon Shadow spray.

And in my usual style, I managed to find something reasonably suitable for the lining.  I've had this green/yellow mottled/ringed fabric for ever so long, and thought it blended fairly well with the journal colours.  I did not buy one single thing to make this journal.   It all came out of my stash [not sure if I should actually gloat about this..............LOL].

Thank you all so much for the interest in my stitching.  I'll be leaving this course behind now, and moving on with more knitting, crochet, and other counted work, but really must clear away all these green and yellow threads!!!