Ethnic

I've been reading a lot about Aboriginal art lately, and wishing I could convey some of the unique mark-making in non-western art. This is an attempt, I think it looks more African than Australian.
I used a patterned fabric for the base, which gives an extra richness to the finished Bauble.

Harmony

All the Baubles so far have been embroidered, this one's a bit different. After some experimenting I devised some crochet motifs, using Pearl 8 cotton.
I love it, and can see lots of possibilities for using crochet, but it's very slow, and a bit hard on the eyes.

Fantasia

I love Paisley, and after reading Aimee Ray's sweet little book Doodle-Stitching, I decided to make a paisley style Bauble.
Side view

I used some unusual purple shot cotton for the base, and worked the paisley motifs in several shades of pink and lavendar.
Top view

Base, with initials

There are twelve motifs, all different; I had great fun designing them, with occasional consultation of my stitching bible - "The Stitches of Creative Embroidery" by Jacqueline Enthoven, for inspiration.
This is a wonderful reference, purchased many years ago, and well-thumbed. Most of the stitches I will never use, of course - but they are fascinating to read about.

What I'm doing

Not blogging very much, obviously. Sometimes Life gets in the way of Art, doesn't it? Bauble-making continues, slowly, but for the last few days I've been working on this-
I finally got sick of searching through several containers like this, looking for the exact shade I needed, so I decided to fix the problem once and for all.
First, I cut a heap of cardboard 'spools' - size is 2 1/2" x 1 3/8", if you're interested. Then I began the big job of winding all those skeins of stranded cotton onto the spools. Each one is labelled (if a label still exists). I have so much of this cotton, most of it bought in tangled boxes at garage sales or markets. Some of the skeins are quite old, I've come across several labelled as 'wartime' - that would be WW2, early 1940's. A few appear to be even older, with brand names I've never heard of. Most were made by Semco, the most popular brand in Australia for many years, but no longer available.
Many skeins are unused, and fairly fast to wind onto the cards, but some are tangled and take ages to sort out. There's quite a lot of duplication - there seem to be an awful lot of greens!
Mercifully I haven't found any moth damage so far. I'm going to keep them in these boxes, just plastic storers from GoLo, (I made the insert from card).
I estimate this box holds about half the greens. I originally bought 10 boxes, but clearly I'll need more.

Serenity

For this Bauble I began with blue cotton fabric, which I sponged with acrylic paint in a paler blue- as quite a lot of the fabric would show, I wanted to add a bit of texture.
The design came from a doodle. I tidied it up a bit, enlarged it on the photocopier, printed it on copy paper, then cut it out, making a template which I pinned onto the ball and traced around with a white gel pen.
The outline is stem stitch worked in Pearl 8 cotton, the "feathers" are worked in two strands of stranded cotton.
I like it a lot.