Aurora II Stitchscape

For Christmas I was gifted a pack of craft fabrics which were all themed on the galaxy and space and had some funky dreamlike colours in them. Some of them are a little bit wild and wacky, but my favourite ones reminded me of the Aurora Borealis Stitchscape I recently finished, having been inspired by seeing the bright pink Aurora from my back door in October last year. I'm still reeling a little bit from the amazing sight - which I would say was once in a lifetime, but actually it happened twice last year (even though I missed the first one) so chances are that it can happen again - and I thought perhaps I'd have another go at using the aurora inspiration. 

I think I was inspired by some of the wackiness of the prints to go a little bit wild with my stitching. The big focus fabric has pinks and purples and peaches in it which I've loosely followed, either by filling it in with straight stitches to echo those stripes of light you sometimes get in the light show, with whipped back stitch for more solid lines (in the darker pink) or just by outlining colour changes with a single strand of back stitch (peach pink). I've also added in stitches in metallic purple sewing thread to help to give a discreet sparkle. 

The centre of the fabric pattern tips into purple and I've made this into the epicentre (of what I do not know) and filled it with french knots to match the colours. Some of the knots were also made with the metallic thread and normal stranded cottons so there is a sparkle to some knots as well, then I went to town adding in sequins and several different beads which I got for my birthday from the Old Bicycle Bead shop. They have such a fantastic range of beads, all different shapes and sizes and colours! I finished up a colour of bags of beads in this piece which must mean I can shop again!

There is so much going on in that middle, and the colours are kind of all over the place so I tried not to overcomplicate the other layers. The very top layer is starry and pretty so I didn't want to hide the existing print, choosing to just add some texture with single strand running stitches, deliberately avoiding that really big star so I didn't cover that. 

The purple fabric underneath the crazy one has just had the pattern on it gone over in single strand stem stitch, or whipped back stitch actually, I can't quite remember now, using as close a colour match as I could find so that it didn't stand out from the background fabric colour. I've edged this with french knots to give it a slightly softer look (bullion knots or couching would have been too hard of a line I think).

I have added some french knots to the larger stars in the fabric below, and followed those starry streaks with stem stitch in a single strand, and also followed the lines of the print for the big star shaped stars. 

The bottom fabric I couldn't really decide what to do with so I started adding in some straight stitch stems to see what it would look like. The colours weren't quite right so I ended up adding in single strand fly stitches as well, which still wasn't quite right so pistil stitches were also added. The clumps are bigger and denser, and perhaps brighter, than I was intending them to be but I don't hate it enough to take it out. I've differentiated the closer clumps by making the stitches slightly thicker, and also swapping out the lighter colour for the metallic thread to help to tie it together with layers further up. Dark french knot were added at the bottom of the stems to help give it a ground surface then, because I couldn't leave it alone, clear/silver beads were also added (again to try and balance), and the stems in the fabric print which were vaguely horizonal had single strand back stitch added to them. 

To finish the edge of the layer I have worked blanket stitch around those clumps (I should have done it first in hindsight but never mind). 

It is quite wacky for me, I'm not sure you would immediately think of the aurora when you look at it but I kind of like it. It pushed me slightly out of my comfort zone and it's a colour palette I don't often use really. Stitchscapes are all about having fun and just seeing where it takes you so this is a great example of not caring too much about making it into a recognisable thing. 

So, the stitch run down for this piece is; running stitch, bullion knots, couching, straight stitch, back stitch, whip stitch, stem stitch, beading, french knots, fly stitch, blanket stitch and pistil stitch.