On the home straight

At last I've now begun to construct the final piece for my current collection.

I've started with the panels of the globe and have the first 2 completed, with the exception of washing away the stabiliser. I like to leave this in place for a while so I can check that each panel is definitely finished.

panel 1

As this was the first panel, I had to hone my rusty FME skills, which took a while. I have to admit I enjoyed the hand sewn embellishment much more, which is quite odd as it was always the other way round, I loved FME and had to be forced to use a hand needle!

panel 2

As you can see from the above close up I've been a bit more creative with the hand stitch in the second panel.

And added a very small accent of blue.

At this point I should mention that after creating these designs in black ink, I decided to go for a monochrome pallet as I really liked the effect. However as a lover of colour I couldn't resist adding just an accent on this panel, something that might crop up on the others if it feels appropriate.

panel 3

This panel was the last one for this session, and it was the third design I created, I thought I would have trouble with it as it's very detailed, but I'm quite pleased with the way it's turned out so far.

It will be embellished next time.

My very first piece, which started out as a dummy run for the panels, is now finished and will form part of my collection.

This piece will finally be framed between 2 pieces of perspex.

And just a footnote, which may be helpful to anyone finishing a course and carrying on alone. I've carried over my time keeping log, a C&G requirement, and am finding it a great help to set myself a minimum number of hours a week and this helps me keep a check on how I'm doing.