Japan, Nadine's wonderful drawing challenge

Finally! It's time for the drawing challenge.Nadine took the lead for the first one after the August break and her inspiration is "Japan".Last month I bought a sort of "grab bag" of goodies from the London Embroiderer's Guild.I wasn't sure what I would do with any of these little bits, but, being half magpie, fell in love with the sparkly richness of it all and had to have it. The bag includes a piece of a 1920 shawl, postcards, bits of lace, threads and some sort of patterns. (Not sure at all what one does to transfer these sorts of patterns onto cloth...maybe iron? If you know, please tell me. The hallmark on the side says they were produced by a company which closed in the 20's.)I was looking at the pieces and decided that for this challenge I would try to draw with a needle and thread and everything I used (with the exception of a beading needle) had to come out of my little grab bag.I'm not much of a seamstress or embroiderer, but I've been a huge fan of sashiko for a few years now and so tried to do a little of that myself.There was a little piece of green-flip-red taffeta and I enveloped it around a not-so-attractive piece of black, sparkly felt and some layers of rough cotton.Then I took some of the orange silk thread and stitched the sun in the middle of the rectangle.I drew some lines with my chalk art pencil to guide my hand with some quilting.And I used a lovely silk chord to stitch the quilt lines. This is fascinating thread. It changes colours from a soft green to a soft purple. I love it.Then I drew myself some cherry blossoms with the chalk and stitched them with a fine gold thread (which is apparently supposed to be added to another kind of thread...oops...good thing I don't know much about much.)Lastly, some little gold beads made up the flower centres. I love it! Not sure what to do with it now, but maybe a central panel for an evening clutch? Any ideas?Anyway, I've missed the drawing challenge for the August break and am happy to be back with my lovely bunch. Come pop over to Nadine's site and check out every one's interpretation when you have a chance, and if you'd like to join, visit our Rose Ariane for the list of who is next. :D