Some progress

After several attempts, I have finally added my header picture...that is the running horse above.  Perhaps there is a way to have the title letters below the picture, but so far that process eludes me.

That little cloth is about 5" high by 9.5" long. Today I embroidered the bee on.  The almond growers in the Central Valley of California are having difficulties with bees too ill to pollinate, so this little bee is a prayer for help for our bee colonies.  


The orangey-pink fabric in the background is a linen that I dyed with onion skins from Trader Joe's.  It was a bag of multi-colored pearl onions.  I read about the process and that citric acid would help to set the color, but I didn't have citric acid, so I added the peel from a clementine and boiled it all together.  It made a beautiful color, but this is not a sturdy cloth, even though I stitched everything securely.   I felt commited  and went ahead with the project anyway but I doubt it would withstand a trip through the washing machine.  Also, I painted starch on the horse so that I could applique him more easily to the background; this helped. After the initial applique, but before the couching, I soaked the background plus horse in warm water to take out the starch because I read that silverfish like starch.  As you can see this is all very experimental.

Lastly, here is Agnes, my dog who is the size of a large cat.  She is a little skeptical about all this experimenting but is supportive for the most part.