Work on Wed 16th July

Hi Everyone,
Have had a wonderful but frustrating couple of weeks since I last wrote my blog.
Last week Northland suffered from gale force winds and torrential rain for four days. The worst days being on my days off and I don't think I stepped outside once. I didn't risk turning on my sewing machine as even with a surge protector I was worried about the effects of a sudden power cut.
The wonderful part was my DH had only outside work so we were able to spend my 3 days off together, keeping warm and watching TV.

I kept playing with ideas for the next border of LE, decided 12 different fabrics for the swags was too many so cut it back to only 6 and  planned to repeat them across the border.
As soon as I had printed the pattern I cut my first 12 swags.and placed them on my pattern.

Awkward photo angle as I was standing on my steps, holding my camera over the table and not sure what I was taking, but what I thought was great initially, did nothing for me now.
I started to think about what I didn't like. Finally the lightbulb turned on, no major elements in my LE are scrappy and I am being influenced by Esther's image of many fabrics in this swag border. I have much more symetry in my version and now I want scrappy - NO I don't think I do.

So what next - Luckily I had to go into town and sign a paper at work agreeing to my employment contract being transferred to the new buyer of the company I work for, who may go unconditional this week.
This had been more good news after several weeks of uncertainty about the companies and my own future.
So, paperwork signed, I headed to Countrydawn my favorite fabric shop which used to be a 50 min drive away but recently moved to central Whangarei - and expanded so fabric, fabric fabric only 10 mins away!!!!
Should have taken my camera but didn't think of it, I will next trip.
What a great time I had as plenty of room to lay LE out on the floor with the pattern for this border alongside her, I can't do this at home any longer. A gathering from around the shop began and grew with a mix of wonderful comments and questions about the design of LE. Several went home intending to check out Esther's Blog and her/our group.
Finally a unanimous decision was made, and this is now my outer swag material.

Another funny angle as the rest of the border is still under my machine foot. It is my original background fabric and am amazed how differently the pattern shows in this photo, probably the camera angle. I love being back using this fabric.The second line from the left is the positioning line for my blue zig zags, first line is my cutting line.
The swag  fabric is another Robert Kaufman  Fusions fabric with the gold overlay that I love, it has all the tones of the other Persian style fabic I used and I am loving how it looks, although I wasn't going to add more fabric's, OH well I will just do what LE tells me too, Lol
Yesterday was a marathon as I want to use my original inspiration fabric in place of the Fleur de Lis but I need 52 if they are all the same. Even with an extra metre of fabric I only have 24 of the shape I want to use.
Found a shape I could use for the centre in each border, this helped so I only needed another shape for another 24.
This is the result.

The 3 larger shapes are what I wanted to use all the way around these borders, last used around my center compass.  The central motif seems to work fine and finally heart tear drops complete this half of the border.
I tried them first using Esther's pattern and cutting them in the Fleur de Lis shape but they just seemed to heavy.

At this stage only the top swag is stitched.
I am cheating with the second swag and cutting the curved shape as one piece. It is another new fabric with the same tones as the top fabric but with the addition of lilac's and green's. I cut them individually first but lost the shading with the overlaps, also discovered I needed 72 per border so this a much better option for me!!!!

Another discovery, while preparing my favorite medallion I found 4 of them have a black highlight - not white. Thank goodness there are 4, two borders will have them equally spaced and two won't. Not something I would want to discover on the last border.
So this is where I am at, happy with what I have so far but no idea yet how my double bows will look.
Have ideas for a mix of inspiration fabric broderie perse and Esther's pattern for the lower part of the border
But this beautiful border is very complex so it definately is  - one step at a time.
Linking now to Esther's WOW.
Cheer's everyone, Jenny