Green is not a Color. it's peace of mind

Finally my new edition of Sew Somerset has arrived in Scotland. I believe it has been out in the US for a little while as I had already heard from several people that my piece was most definitely in it. I don't tend to believe this till I see it with my own eyes and so wait to put the information in my blog till I have the issue in my hands. This is the second issue of Sew Somerset, published by Stampington, and you can obtain it here.

Coincidentally it was the Chelsea Flower Show last week and we were told that the latest trend for gardens is green. Most flowers in the gardens were white and for the rest it was a feast of different greens and of course also different shapes and textures. So I'm right up to date with my Green piece, in fact I beat the trend as this piece was actually made last June!

This was my thinking behind it:

As soon as I saw that Green would be the theme for a Somerset Studio future issue I started brainstorming green. This is what I came up with:

green man, green forest lovers, life in the country, green trees, green lily of the valley leaves, green gardens, green shade, the village green, green winter makes a fat churchyard, green life shoots, green fields, green and pleasant land, green as an emerald, green in judgement, green isle, a green hill far away, green lane, celtic green, green scrolls.

Quite a few of these were combined to form this piece which was also given a romantic theme with green forest lovers.

And here are the instructions:

Create a fabric collage background by putting torn images, (both vintage and from magazines) and a variety of mainly green napkins on muslin, using thinned down PVA glue. Add additional color with green Dye-na-Flow paints.
Cut an 8” wide by 9” long piece from this collage, and mount it on craft felt, by machine stitching around the edges.
Add the fabric lady image (from the Alphastamps Pre-Raphaelite Women sheet) by stitching around it in a decorative stitch and with metallic green thread on your sewing machine.
Add the transparency of the forest lovers (from Altered Papers) and paper text in the bottom right hand corner, and also the paper flower fairy image (also from Altered Pages) on the bottom left, both by machine stitching.
Stamp small leave shapes in green randomly over the remaining background.
Add the large tree postage stamp as well as the 3 smaller stamps (featuring men) using machine stitching to attach them.
Add decorative machine stitching around the word Green (part of the background collage).
Add rest of the title text with Dymo label maker, stick down and also surround with stitching.
Hand stitch seed stitches randomly on the piece using a silk green variegated thread (from 21st Century Yarns). Add 3 green shell buttons as shown.
Layer the piece with watercolour paper the same size and finish the edges by sewing on a transparent green ribbon (ThreadArt) to cover the edges.
Finally add a green shell button to each corner.