Red This Time

Three blue jackets in a row made me realize I needed to do something different this time.  Following my usual pattern yesterday afternoon I pulled out a bin of fabric to see if I could find something that called my name.  I started with a bin of silks and never went any farther.  A set of red fabrics nearly jumped out of the bin and into my arms.  

For me red is about as far from blue as I usually get.  It's not that I don't like red, I just hardly ever work with it.  

Here's the set of fabrics I pulled out.  The big piece with the swirls and paisleys is one I've had for along time.  I just love the patterning and the fabric has a nice soft hand.  

I didn't have a good idea of what I was going to do with the fabrics, I just thought that they went together well.  Some of them hadn't been prewashed yet so I took them home to do that last night and just let the ideas stew.

Today my ideas started to come together.  I decided to do some reverse applique to incorporate motifs from the flower and fern fabrics into the empty paisleys. 

Here's my test piece.  After I did a couple of these on the sleeves, I decided it needed a little something more.  I've started couching some sparkly threads around the outline and along some of the swirls.  It is coming out well, but I sure didn't set myself an easy task.  I did three and then decided that was enough for today.  It requires way too much patience for a late Friday afternoon.  I'll keep going in the morning when I'm rested.