As I commented recently, I use very litttle blue fabric, and so don’t have many bits in my scrap bags. As I auditioned the scrap bag contents for this project, it was clear that what I had wouldn’t be enough for the ~30 tiny landscapes I have in mind. Australian skies are bright and clear, though perhaps not as intensely blue as in the little landscapes on the right, all of made about 1996-7.

Most of my other blues were very pale or greyish, including a couple of pieces of light grey sashiko dyed fabric. Solution: spray paint them all! I watered down some ultramarine acrylic paint, put that in a small spray bottle, took them all out onto the back lawn and did just that.

I’m thrilled with the result that all the pieces are colour related but different; and I love those formerly light grey shibori pieces which remind me of approaching stormy skies. I need to do a couple of broody landscapes featuring them.

I love working this way, and there’s something very zen about sifting and selecting colours and textures, strip by strip, to compose a tiny landscape. The process is for every seam: select two, cut at the same time, sew, iron, repeat… my iron’s within reach, just beyond the RHS of the photo. At this scale it is certainly fiddly, but listening to an absorbing Harry Hole mystery (Jo Nesbo’s “Knife”) I really don’t notice the time passing.