I borrowed Gwen Hedley’s new book, Drawn to Stitch, the other day from my friend Peggy. It’s really terrific and inspiring. The author’s focus is on hand-stitching but I think there’s a lot there for anyone who works with fiber and stitch. I was inspired by one of her exercises and spent a couple hours on the project. I took one of my pieces of breakdown printed fabric, tore it into strips, and then wove it loosely together on a piece of fusible web. Once I got it woven I fused it together to stabilize it, then layered it onto some dyed batting and background fabric. I machine stitched it along the grid, free-motioned it to emphasize the dyeing, couched some yarns down, and even did a few seed stitches by hand. I’m happy with it, although it is of a shape and size to remind me of a potholder. It reminds me of a map with the combination of the grid and the organic shapes. And it was enjoyable to do a project without a specific end point, kind of like a three-dimensional sketch made of stitch.