January Boundary Lines Swap

*Edited to add, this has been sitting in my drafts since the 7th February waiting for me to press publish! 

What a cracking start to the 2024 Stitchscape Swap. There are some familiar faces/styles, and some shiny new ones too which is rather exciting! It was actually quite comforting to see the envelopes plopping on the mat and recognising the handwriting; amazing how much of a kinship can be felt with someone that you've never met. 

I always hold my breath at the start of a new year in case no one wants to join in any more. The first few months and the last few months seem to have less participants in, but then it grows bigger in the summer when the days are longer and creative juices are pumping. 

These cards are amazing though and do exactly what it says on the tin - represent boundary lines!

The prompts for these cards included: Walls (through fields, buildings, up-close detail), fences (picket fences, chain-link etc), map lines, country or county boundary lines.

Some of these are more transient than others. There's nothing that says "a boundary" quite like a wall, so that's super obvious, but then sometimes if you are visiting in Wales, you can accidentally slip over the boundary into England without even noticing! Which happens to us fairly often when we go on family holidays down that way. 

These cards seem to cover all of those topics, we have wonderful chain link fences (made with chain stitch!), big stone walls and little stone walls, rough field boundary fences, houses and their hillside garden boundaries and an embroidered map! I wonder if the map was based off somewhere real or if it is made up? I love the little pine trees on it, it's almost like a treasure map - you can imagine Jack Sparrow saying to turn left at the group of three pine trees, wade through the river, then turn right towards the clump...

There are some lovely textures in these cards too, and lots of different stitches. I can spot fly stitch, bullion knots, running stitch, chain stitch, french knots, seed stitch, straight stitch, detached chain stitch (lazy daisies), blanket stitch, couching, back stitch and one which I'm sure is a named type of stitch but I can't think what it is, for the fence posts in the card below. 

They're lovely, absolutely lovely!

How tiny the back stitches are in the above card! It is such a fabulous texture though if you run your finger over it. 

I wish I had put in a gate. I saw this card come in the post and immediately got gate envy. It looks like it has been made with strips of dark brown felt which have then been stitched over to couch it down but also create a kind of wooden grain effect which is fab. 

Abi's card is so sweet with the little houses. She always has such wonderful little snippets of fabrics to make her cards with and I love that fancy yarn she's used for the bottom boundary and fabric edging. The sections of squared fluffy ends make fantastic hedges or Rhododendrons or something, and then the cord they are stitched onto or within is a great clipped edging. It's such a brilliant feeling when you have the perfect fabric or trimming for a project. 

And finally, Jackie's piece below looks almost like an oil painting in a National Trust house. The stitches and colours wash into each other and it merges and blends beautifully, but actually is quite intricate when you look up close at the tiny stitches. You can imagine it as a giant painting hanging on the wall of one of those massive swirling staircases can't you?

As always, individual photos are available to view on my website on the dedicated ATC page, as well as future themes and prompts if you need them. I hope you'll be inspired to have a go at next month's theme; Stepping Stones!