August 2nd, 2010
Marrakech Redux
As I told you in this blog post, our most recent Peacock Painting trip project in Marrakech was themed around Moroccan embroidery designs from Fez. This style of embroidery is characterized by a singular color of thread, usually black, on a cream-colored background.
The project was fairly simple and straightforward: stenciling the patterns in black on the interior walls of a canvas tent built especially for entertaining. The stencils were designed to coordinate and combine in various ways to create a unique, overall scheme.
We started with a border. Then added a diamond pattern banded by a different border set on the diagonal.
Then we added a more complex lacy border to complete the dado area.
It probably sounds tedious, but it was actually a LOT of fun. We felt like we were doing an old-fashioned quilting bee. The six of us worked really well together and Maggies’ music mix and nice l-o-n-g lunch breaks kept us humming along.
It WAS nice to near the end though, and as each subsequent “wall” was finished and rehung, we enjoyed being enveloped by our handiwork.
The cat provided a temporary distraction, but other than that was no help at all….
So we continued on to stencil the door panels (that convert to awnings) in a coordinating pattern…
until we got down to the last brush stroke….and then it was Moroccan Mint Tea time! My awesome little flock of Peacock Painters this time were Lisa Wilson, Nancy Jones, Angela Perrone, Alicia “LuLu” Danzig, and Miss Maggie O’Neill.
All of these stencil patterns have now been newly added to the Royal Design Studio website here. There are lots of ways to mix and match them and they will be equally fabulous in both bright and pastel colors!