Splodges - an enjoyable little interlude

I'm enjoying plodding on with time-consuming needlepoint projects including the Ehrman Spring cushion cover, but fancied getting sidetracked by something that would:
a) let me try out painting a bit of a design on some canvas;
b) allow for decision-making as I go along;
c) not take long to finish.

I duly splashed some splodges of Tesco's acryllic paint onto a piece of scrap canvas...



...and have been semi-following the splodges and semi-ignoring them, according to whim.



The inspiration is Kaffe Fassett's lovely millefiori-like Paperweight fabric in the colourway 'sludge' though it's by no means an attempt to replicate the fabric. The wool is Anchor Tapisserie, in the colours I had to hand that were closest to 'sludge' - some a good match, others less so. There are some shapes that are vaguely reminiscent of the ones in the fabric but I decided early on that any attempt at copying the design would be doomed to failure - and that it would in any case defeat the object of being able to invent as I went along.



I've no idea what I'll do with the resulting little piece - I imagine I'll back it with Paperweight and make it into a little bag - or perhaps leave it as a little picture. I didn't really think about that when choosing the size of scrap to work on!

Unfortunately, I've had to pause as I haven't enough of colour 8072 to finish the background. I thought I'd spotted some on Saturday in a big remaindered box of wool in the Singer sewing shop in Bury St Edmunds - but it turned out to be the next-darker shade 8074 so I'll have to wait a little longer. (Of course I couldn't resist buying a big bag of wool anyway!)

I'd really recommend this type of project. It's fun deciding what to do as you go along while having a bit of painted guidance - I can't imagine me ever wanting to do a precisely painted canvas. The acryllic was cheap to buy (about a fiver I think) and easy to apply. It is also easy to correct mistakes, either by sewing over a few stitches or by cutting stitches out if a bigger area is involved. For instance, I sometimes found that larger concentric circles looked a bit boring and so oversewed one of the rings with a few spots of another colour. I found that I got slightly better at making the shapes fairly circular as I went along.

My only slight misgiving is that it feels a bit of a cop-out doing something all in very basic tent stitch. I suppose I could have used something more textured for the background, but it was more relaxing to keep this in-front-of-the-telly-task as simple as possible.

Now back to cracking on with one of the neverending bigger projects...