I've always had a love affair with paper. I think most designers probably do. I used to make paper, taking scraps and blending them with water to create pulp. I would collect petals and leaves or buy fragrant flecks of lavender and sprinkle them like a garnish onto the pulp before baking it into a sheet of pure perfection.
When I recently decided to lay down my squares of linen and revisit paper as the basis of my needlework, it was like coming home. Having just finished my first paper + thread "Yellow Series," I was ready to begin my first large original piece, which included tea-staining (one of those lightbulb ideas that came to me while I was supposed to have been sleeping).
I've tea-stained cross-stitched linen and paper to give it an antique appearance, yet I had never used tea as a wash (like you would watercolor) until now. I absolutely love the way the natural pigment puddles on the paper creating layers of neutral tone-on-tone texture. Then layer subtle lines of white thread with billowy, frayed edges, and well, it's love at first sight.
This is the first result of my Paper + Tea series. Delicious.
