A mammoth task

This year marks 10 years since Lesley opened Little Bits. During this time, she has built a community around her little shop, a warm, lovely, encouraging environment. I have made many wonderful friendships through Little Bits, some of which I can already tell will be lifelong. I just don't want to let these girls go - ever!

She had a bit of a party to celebrate this achievement in early October, and I wanted to make her something significant to commemorate this event. Let's face it, not everyone can open a business and make it grow and flourish the way she has! Tile canvases seem to be all the rage at the moment - I contributed to one earlier this year (see this post on Jo's blog). So here is what I made for Lesley:


You can click on the image to make it grow if you want a closer look.

If I had make individual tiles, it would have needed over 320 of the little suckers, so you can see where I started running out of time and had to make double, triple and quadruple sized tiles. All up it took me around 40 hours, that included 2 overnight sessions.

It now hangs over the doorway to the classroom at Lesley's shop. I think she put it out of my reach because I spent the next few visits to her shop "fixing" things on it. I love that she holds my piece in such high regard - makes me feel warm inside. I'm sure she makes everyone feel like that - it may even be the secret to her success *wink*.