A makeover and a WIP

Don't fall over! I am working on a tote WIP today! But it's a new project so I can't really count it toward my PhD. I do have a good excuse for starting something new, though. Notice the cute new logo? Well, I have been wanting a cat-on-a-sewing-machine logo for a while now and finally conned someone into an art trade. 

 

My shirt-tail cousin/friend, Amanda (who incidentally has a new blog and a new Etsy store), designed this for me. Amanda is an amazing artist and also an elementary art teacher. So she is getting a special teacher tote and I got a supercute logo. 

 

This is a panel that will be worked into her tote bag. I thread painted the tree trunk, raw edge appliqued the circles and now am embellishing by hand embroidering. Eventually there will be leaves- I am thinking paisleys for leaves, but I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal so we'll see what happens after I put green thread in my needle. Always an adventure here.

 some closeups

 This was my first attempt at thread painting and I liked it. And it looks ok! I can definitely see myself doing this again.