We have some friends coming to see us from America next week so I thought I would put my very young designing and stitching skills to use and make them a wallhanging. We met G & P several years ago when we were holidaying in Connemara in Ireland. Since then they have looked us up every time they have come to the UK which they do quite regularly. We spend a very pleasant evening having a lovely meal in a local hotel followed by a glass or two of Tullamore Dew, a very palatable Irish Whiskey!
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I decided that I wanted to work with my own photographs of Ireland on a pieced background. (Do I sound as though I know what I'm talking about? Hmmmm.....)
The fabrics have come from the samples I got from the Scrapstore a few weeks ago and I tried several arrangements with paper versions of the photos I will eventually use.
I also auditioned some trims and embellishments but I think I need to tint the shamrocks to reduce the brightness of the white. The shamrock motifs came from the coasters I bought at Blarney. (Not sure if I have blogged about that). I may or may not use the piece of driftwood as a hanger - it is maybe not quite long enough and will add to the weight for our friends flight back to the US so I may look for an alternative.
I have been experimenting too with the arrangement of the photographs on the backing fabrics but I still haven't settled on the final arrangement.
So, it's taken me all day and I've managed to stitch the layered fabrics together and also tack them onto a cotton backing. The next step is to transfer the images. I think I will use T-shirt transfer and iron these onto cotton which I can then stitch onto the background. I don't think I can transfer the images directly to the background as some of the material is quite fluffy/textured. I'm just hoping the photo images won't be too "strong" and in your face, or maybe I mean realistic, as I want to add some shells and lace and maybe some text here and there. If I am really adventurous I will Free Machine embroider over the surface. I would like to handstitch the embroidery but I don't think I will have enough time.
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I'm sure I should have drawn all this out and planned it in detail before I started but I tend to be a seat-of-your-pants kind of gal! Watch this space! I have to finish by next Tuesday.