Sea Pink Shore Stitchscape

I've been getting back into the swing of bigger Stitchscapes after a spate of little #inthehoop 'scapes and pebbles. This piece was mostly inspired by a page in an old Gardener's World magazine that was being cleared out. I had a final flick through and came across some images that I really liked, Chinese cherry blossom, Californian poppy fields and these sea pinks clinging on to moss covered rocks.

My crazy brain immediately went DRIZZLE STITCH! I seem to view the world in different embroidery stitches and suddenly I had to start a whole new Stitchscape just so that I could try out some drizzle stitches, which are fabulous and curly and three dimensional. I've used DMC thread, Stylecraft Acrylic DK yarn and DMC Coton Perle thread to create different textures and colour tones, and mingled these in with some strips of hand dyed (not by me) cotton scrim which I bought at Alexandra Palace Knitting & Stitching show. It creates exactly the mossy look I was hoping for.

I have a variety of sea pinks which get larger towards the front so that it has a sense of perspective. Towards the 'back' are darker three strand, three twist DMC thread french knots, in the centre are Coton Perle five twist french knots, and right at the front are detached chain stitches in three layers with clusters of french knots in pink and yellow at the centre.

The waves are the bottom four blue layers, and the sky the top two. In my whip stitch sea layer I have added single strands of metallic DMC thread to give the water some sparkle, and mirrored this effect in the seed stitch layer above with a variegated DMC thread. The areas of light and dark remind me of the reflections of the clouds you see when the water is still and gentle.
The fish skeleton layer is just for fun!

I am really chuffed with this piece, it looks exactly how my brain imagined it to look! You can almost hear the gulls crying overhead, and smell that glorious sea salt smell!