WIP: Picnic Hampered! (by Kathy Fenchel)

Today's featured WIP is Picnic Hampered!, designed by Kathy Fenchel.

Technique/Materials:  This piece uses traditional needlepoint stitches combined with surface embroidery and stumpwork techniques. It is stitched on Congress cloth, primarily with cotton threads.

Background:  Kathy Fenchel taught this project at our regional EGA seminar in May 2007. I am stitching it primarily as designed, although I added some felt padding to the random surface embroidery used for the tree. I really like the creative use of a plastic washer, covered with buttonhole stitch, for the tire swing.

Why it's not done:  After a little over a month, during which I was also working on another piece from the same seminar, this was set aside so I could concentrate on a correspondence course that needed to be finished. This project is the only canvaswork WIP in the collection that is no longer on its stretcher bars, since those were needed for another project at some point! 

What's left to do: The picnic blanket and the tree both need to be finished, and the tire swing attached. I'll need to add the "visitors" (bees and ants), the fence and sunflower in the background, and finish off with a sprinkling of grass.