Waterlily Pond ATCs

I cut these ATCs from the hoop in time for the swap by the skin of my teeth. Not because I was late with these ones but because I make two themes at a time and I hadn't finished the next theme (Patchwork Fields) I couldn't cut these out. 

I had spent a little while on these, I think because the idea didn't completely come out as I had thought it would in my head. For me there's something off about the bridges - whether they're the wrong colour, or don't pop from the background enough or the texture is wrong...I can't put my finger on it which is why they've stayed as they are because I don't have an answer on how to correct it. They have improved by having the trees tumbling down in front and there being more focus on the lilies below but I don't feel entirely comfortable with them. 

I think also there's an element that I don't like the stitching between the railings on the bridge. Perhaps if I had built up the bridge from strips rather than cut the whole piece out as one it would have worked better for me. As it was, the square shapes in the centre of the felt were hard to cut out so precisely and each one has a slightly different character (which isn't what I mind as each card should be it's own entity). 

I was also using up threads in my thread box and ran out of a colour half way through a bridge (horror!) so in one of them you can actually see that I have used a darker blue around the two central squares (top left one), and another bridge is completely stitched using that darker colour. 

It still gives off the impression that I wanted. Possibly surprisingly, I wasn't thinking of Monet when I made the bridges, the fabrics were chosen a long time ago as they just screamed 'waterlilies' at me. 

I had the fabric in two colourways so I used them both, the darker shade to hint at a shadowy section of pond underneath the bridge. Maybe that's the bridge issue actually, that the darker fabric also appears above the bottom section of the bridge....I should have cut the background to fit the bridge....hmmmm. Too late now but perhaps that would resolve it if I tried again - maybe I'll have a play just to appease myself. 

As is often the case, the top fabric hasn't had anything added to it, and the others barely any. The second fabric down has been edged with a single strand blanket stitch, with a running stitch following the line of the bridge at the bottom of the layer. 

The darker circular print fabric has been edged with bullion knots and nothing more, but the lighter circular print has had some of those shapes picked out and worked in a rough satin stitch to give more of a texture for lily pads. 

The Willow trees have been made by stripping apart a jute string I had in my stash and couching it down into random branches. The benefit of untwisting the string and using the strands is that it has retained a slight curliness from when the strands were wrapped around each other and it's made it more interesting a line to follow. Once each piece was couched and trimmed to different lengths to make it less uniform, I added single fly stitches in a couple of colours along each branch to hint at leaves. The ends of the string have been left quite straggly. I possibly didn't need to couch the strands down really, I could have just gone straight in with the fly stitches but I think it was easier to secure them in place first. 

I added some 'obvious' lily pads in felt as well - I was going to add more and in different colours but I thought that three actually worked quite well because the tree took up a fair amount of space. Having done the tree first I ended up trying to stitch underneath it quite a bit which would be something to remember if I did have another go. 

The waterlilies have been made using detached chain stitches. For the bigger flowers I've done a taller row of chain stitches and then added a smaller one into each to try and hint at that kind of roundness. The smaller flowers just have a single line of detached chain stitches, but they all then have a single strand of a darker pink just stitched in between each shape to try and add a bit of depth, plus fill in the gap in the stitch itself. 

For the glittery water, I've used my clear, yet slightly pink tinged, sequins again and stitched these down with invisible thread. 

The cards needed a bit more depth to them so I've added a shadow line in stem stitch, using two strands of a dark blue floss just following that bottom line of the bridge to try and hint that it is darker and shadowy-er under there. It also colour matches the darker circle shapes in that fabric. French knots have been used to blur the lines of the two watery fabrics and that's them completed! (Other than the backs stitched on and the cards cut out and labelled.) 

So overall the stitches used here were; running stitch, blanket stitch, couching, fly stitch, back stitch, stem stitch, detached chain stitch, satin stitch, bullion knots and french knots. Quite a lot actually for such small pieces!! I'm so looking forward to the whole Waterlily Pond collection coming together for the swap.