A couple of weeks after completing this commission, it has been gifted to its new owners and I can share the images of it with you! This little stitchscape has been in the pipeline since June as a friend approached me having seen my stand at the Bridge Arts show. As a gift for her parent's 60th wedding anniversary, she wanted a special present and asked me to create a very specific stitchscape of a favourite family holiday destination. Her family regularly visit Collioure in France, and as they were going in September, she decided to take some images when there for me to work from.
The must-haves included; The Church of Our Lady of The Angels, the boats and the houses along with the blue sky and the sea!
I think I have managed to pluck the most essential parts out of the photos and into the hoop. It was a slightly rocky start as the fabrics I had initially laid down for the buildings weren't capturing my friend's imagination so I had to get creative. For the church, I had started with a patterned vintage cotton print which had letters and numbers printed in a sort of cross stitch font, and rather than pull the fabric out and select a different one, I worked a thick brickwork backstitch horizontally across the bottom of the building, petering out at the tower. Over this, to blend the lines a little bit, I stitched tiny little seed stitches in a different coloured thread to make the appearance of old stones. The clock absolutely makes this tower I think (satin stitch face with back stitch definition and straight stitch hands).
Similarly, the fabric for the buildings, originally a triangle patterned fabric (the same one used for my beach hut in 'Incoming Tide') then didn't fit with the rest of the 'scape, so I gave it the same brickwork backstitch treatment, but vertically this time. The windows were added in satin stitch, and I also added in shutters and balconies with straight stitch. Extra buildings, such as the church, and further roof tops were also added in in satin stitch.
I really love the sea in this embroidery, Fat lines of mixed blue threads chopping around to create movement and waves, frothing ever so slightly with beaded bubbles and french knots. It is a little rougher for the boats on my harbour water than in the images sent over by my friend, but I think it helps you to imagine the boats bobbing up and down on the water surface, and allowed me to use my lovely water print fabric (also used in the 'Incoming Tide' stitchscape).
The masts of the boats were made by twisting several strands of brown embroidery thread together to make a cord which was then couched down. The top of the cord was then covered up with layers of thread to secure the snipped ends. The rolled up sails are two lengths of full embroidery thread (as in all six strands), couched under a support of chunky whip stitch, and the extra ropes are just long lengths of pale grey, stitched where the photos showed they attach and support the mast.
Funnily enough, after taking these final photos of the framed stitchscape, and packaging it all up very prettily with the bubble wrap and turquoise tissue paper, and the logo sticker, something was niggling at me. It was actually keeping me up at night feeling that something wasn't quite right with the 'scape, and I finally figured out that it was the selvedge visible in the top layer of sky! If my friend hadn't liked the lettering on the church, she probably wouldn't like the visible selvedge edge which hadn't been visible when I'd shared a finished photo of the embroidery still in it's hoop to make sure she was happy with it.
So, after these images were taken, I ended up unwrapping the stitchscape and trimming the selvedge off before re-wrapping it ready for the big day! I hope that it was worth it and that they love it!
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