Oooh I remember this

I am in the clutches of obsession over a new project and it feels delicious. Inspiration hit yesterday and only the possibility of making my fingertips bleed shoving the needle through the firm fabric stopped me stitching! I've been weighing up how to remodel a rather grubby and too sugar pink laptop case that was rescued from someone's rubbish months ago. On Monday I suddenly knew it had have trees embroidered on it.

The catalyst responsible for this happy creative action was a tour of some North Oxfordshire Artweeks open studios on Saturday afternoon. Fabulous company, wonderful things to look at and scenery to tour through. We finished in the cosiest, arty cottage - think log fire, flagstone floors and a tumbling cat and and dog - relaxed, colourful and layered with life and lovely things. It illustrated exactly what home means to me and gave me a new appreciation for my attempts at curating chaos and feathering my nest. I thought that was my big gift from the trip and that was more than, hugely more than, enough. I was just up for a potter in the beauty of Oxfordshire in spring.

I am itching to unleash more embroidery but next comes the dyeing.  I wanted to layer some embroidery in before I dye the background to add to the layers of colour and texture but given I'm not sure how the dyeing will go I'm trying to resist working on the undyed case too much. Though as I've bought the wrong kind of dye for this synthetic fabric, I'm stuck for the moment. I might just add a little more embroidery, can't stop stitching...