With all of these sea themed Stitchscapes around I wanted to do something a little different for the Cliff's Edge ATCs. These are for the May swap theme and we've already had some spectacular entries for this theme come through in the post. I considered looking at the edge of the cliff as if on the beach looking up, or just straight on, maybe having some nesting birds or gulls - perhaps even having a side on view of several peaks out to sea, maybe with a sunset...so many options! Finally I plumped for the precarious position of looking down over the edge of the cliff, with some little flowers clinging on to the chalky surface and waves crashing onto the rocks and sand below. I hope that this viewpoint comes across!
As usual, I made four of them, although there isn't a lot of difference in these ones this time (not like the Butterflies cards). Everything was cut by eye so there is a difference in the rock shapes and some of the spacing, or the position of the flowers but that's about it.
My watery blue sea is very simple, two shades of blue floss in a single strand were stitched into running stitches, petering out as they went further away from the sand. Then I have whipped over these, mixing up the colours to create slight variations, and also introducing a single strand of blue metallic thread in as well for a little bit of sparkle. The three colours have then been stitched into french knots to create those bubbly wave edges.
I've used a slightly more open weave cotton fabric for the sand to give it a bit of texture, and I haven't done any specific stitching on this layer at all. It is tucked right underneath all of the other fabrics to help push it to the back and make it look the furthest away.
The rocks have been made with a big spotted fabric and I have worked straight stitches in rows through the lighter splodges and couched down a full set of 6 strands of the same embroidery thread for the edge.
A piece of cotton scrim in green has been added over the cliff fabric to give a grassy texture, and I've discreetly stab stitched this down in green just to hold it. Fly stitches in a variegated green yarn have been added along the edge nearest to the sea to enhance the grass idea, and then my lovely happy yellow daisy flowers in two strands of yellow have been randomly scattered along that very edge; sometimes overlapping the sand or the rocks to show that they are one of the highest layers. The big dark centres are fairly chunky three strand french knots.
For the chalk cliff texture above (thinking that the grass and daisies is sort of a ledge poking out) I've covered the surface in seed stitch, alternating an ivory/ecru colour in two strands, with a grey/beige colour in one strand to create discreet stitch heights. The single strand of griege has then been used to work whip stitch in the direction of the chalky crags and furrows going down towards the beach.
I do really like these cards, and they were simple to make (although all of the little stitches were quite time consuming as always). The full stitch run down for these is; running stitch, whip stitch (over running and seed stitch), french knots, fly stitch, straight stitch, couching, detached chain stitch, seed stitch and bullion knots.
They look so much better as their individual selves rather than crammed into one hoop - amazing to think that these were once just individual pieces of fabrics and threads and bits. Now they are each a something!
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