For this challenge I experimented with a number of design ideas, and after one ‘false start’ this is the second one that I tried. As usual, once I started work on the design, the piece took on a life of its own and developed as I worked. My original idea was to have circles of a number of colours and sizes and to build these up in layers. I mixed both commercial and hand dyed fabrics, and three different size circles. I had thought at first that I would use shades of blue and green only, but as I rifled through my stash, other colours shouted at me, and added a liveliness to the piece that I liked. After laying all my circles down, I machine quilted around their edges.

I wanted to add a further layer to these, and stamped white circles with acrylic paint using the end of a cardboard tube (you can guess where that came from!). These give a line of variable thickness, and I added hand-stitching that followed the line of the acrylic. I used French knots, which to me are a circular type of stitch, and I made the these more densely packed in areas where the acrylic line was thickest. I spread the stitches out from the stamped lines, leaving the centre of the circles clear, and making the stitches less dense as they moved out from the circle. This gave a sort of ‘splash’ effect, like the drips which appear when something is dropped into liquid. I used a single colour for this hand stitch to bring the design together and to give it some continuity.

Looking at the finished piece the title became obvious to me – a splash of colour!

Close up view: