ANASAZI SPIRIT by Carole H. Lake and Michael E. Boren

Dotted across the southwestern landscape are the dramatic remains of tens of thousands of dwellings made of rock and mud. These, along with bits of broken pottery and scattered fragments of tools, provide silent testimony that humans lived and worked and played here long ago.  The Anasazi are gone, leaving us to dream in stitches of their lives, their world and the traces they have left for us.

Essentially a stitch sampler, this piece is inspired by the idea of the Anasazi, with a mystical feel and colors of the rocks and desert that are all we have left of their long-ago lives.  It includes a variety of composite and pattern stitches, worked in the soft colors and textures of the southwest.

ANASAZI SPIRIT is stitched on 18 ct. French blue mono canvas with a variety of threads including Watercolours, Waterlilies and Impressions from the Caron Collection, Rainbow Gallery’s Elegance and Grandeur, and Kreinik #8 and #12 braid.  The stitches are fun and creative, as you would expect from Carole and Michael, and they include not only a fabulous multi-thread double fan doubled and a sassy quick Walneto, but also a step-pattern Byzantine, burden stitch, and a variety of other delectable stitches.

ANASAZI SPIRIT, designed by Carole and Michael together, can stand alone or finish off your set of three (you DID finish the others, didn’t you?).(for Anasazi Song - click here)(for Anasazi Dream - click here)  It uses motifs and threads from the other two pieces to create a uniquely eclectic blend of modern geometric stitches and the colors of the deep canyons, rock palisades, high mesas, and open desert of the Four Corners area, which were home to a remarkable group of agricultural people we today refer to as the Anasazi -- the ancient ones.