Supermoon Stitchscape

I am loving the time that the extended Christmas weekend is giving me to work on my stitchscapes. I missed the several hours of concentrated stitching in the evenings which had been put aside for wrapping presents, visiting friends and family, and making little handmade gifts. Yesterday afternoon, once the enormous (and thoroughly delicious) Christmas lunch had been finished and cleared away, the evening stretched out ahead whilst I was snuggled on the sofa at my Grandmother's house, next to a warm wood burner. With a few flourishing bullion knot flowers, I finally finished my Supermoon Stitchscape!

I have experimented with a couple of different types of thread in this piece, which the photo doesn't show up that well I have to admit. My usual embroidery floss is the DMC stranded, but I came across the DMC Silky stranded in the shop the other day and it is beautiful!! It's 100% rayon and has such a lovely sheen to it. I've used it for the feather fabric at the bottom of the stitchscape and it looks like a reflection of the moon as it sort of glows against the matt white fabric. The centre back stitch of the feather is stitched in another new thread, the DMC Mouline, which is a glittery metallic thread to match my glittery crochet yarn used further up in the stitchscape layers. They really set the whole piece up rather nicely.

I adore this little town that's been created. It's nothing complicated, I've just followed the pattern of the fabric, outlining the houses in a single strand of white thread, and highlighting some of the windows in yellow with a satin stitch to make it look cosy and welcoming. The splash of yellow helps to bring the whole stitchscape alive a bit more as the colours are quite dark and inky elsewhere.

The moon is another of my favourite parts of this piece. I hadn't intended on adding anything other than the blanket stitch around the edge, but it looked sort of empty so I was left with a bit of a dilemma. I didn't want to just put in french knots in the way I always do but it really did need something, so I experimented a little with french knots stitched in a doubled strand of Coats Duet sewing cotton thread. This is usually what I use just to tack the fabrics down at the beginning and it is a lot smoother and thinner than the embroidery thread. For some reason the two strands didn't play all that well at being a french knot and didn't tighten down, creating these lovely little circles which look remarkably like moon craters!

Of course, a stitchscape wouldn't be complete without some bullion knot flowers at the forefront, and these ones have been enhanced with the DMC Mouline thread to add an extra sparkle!! Using new types of thread has encouraged me to keep testing new threads and ways of creating light and texture, who know where that idea could go!

Boxing Day has dawned bright and beautiful, clear and crisp. A rather pleasant change from the recent days of Storm Barbara and any other named strong winds which have buffeted us recently. The rain has stopped and the sun has arrived, much to the cat's delight (he does suffer so in Winter).

Our neighbour has cut some trees down at the end of his garden which gives us a rather clear view down over the valley, looking over the streets below and the starting of the hill opposite. It creates a very open space which looks so lovely when the sun shines on it.

I so enjoyed my Supermoon Stitchscape that I immediately started a new one. I have images of darkened, moon studded waves, frolicking sea horses and looming cliffs rolling around in my head. It's a sort of combination of my White Cliffs Stitchscape and the Supermoon one, and I intend to play further with sparkly threads with maybe some beads added....anything goes!

My rising moon has already been enhanced with the DMC Silky thread to help give it that moon-like glow.

I am really enjoying these moon inspired stitchscapes!!