The Flowery Newness.

I am using the time until the Copenhagen conference starts to do my pre-season-start inventory work, which also includes cleaning out and re-filling the many boxes I use to protect and store the wares that I lug along, and other work like dunking my baskets in water to clean and revitalise them.

And I'm very happy to announce that I can do this while sitting in a room with the newly finished Flowery Newness!

This was quite pleasant to work and did not take overly long, thanks to the appliqué technique. The motif is taken from a 15th century manuscript margin decoration; the manuscript is probably from South Germany and is a Book of Hours. You can see the inspiration page in the British Library online thingie, here.

For those interested in the technique: It's wool on wool, plant dyes (with exception of the stems, which are fake onion-dyed chemical dye), edges caught with beeswax and sewn on with plant-dyed silk thread. I had to use a substitute for the gilt leather strip that would usually have surrounded the edges; the substitute is a gilt thread (which should really be called a rope, compared to proper historical gold thread).

This flowery banner will adorn my sales table in Freienfels - and I think it's quite the eye-catcher!