Sunset Seascapes

The best part of our little flat is this view. It's not a huge property and it didn't tick all of our boxes when we were trying to get on the property ladder, but we decided that we could live with what it did have and make it work. This view was an absolutely unexpected bonus!! 

I think, had we lived here during the pandemic and lockdown, we would have gone slightly stir crazy but there is a fire escape balcony, which we use as our main entrance because it's so much nicer than the dark, cramped staircase off another door in an alleyway. I've added saddle pots to the balcony railings and pots around the edge and I think I've cracked the planting too as quite a lot died last year because it can be windy and stark being on the edge of a ridge. Alpines are the way to go!

Anyway, I bring this up because during the summer, the sun sets right in front of this balcony and when it gets truly hot, this is the best place to be. I love the golden sun moment and, occasionally when it turns to red, we get the most amazing deep red shadows on that side of the house. One of the best times of day to photograph Stitchscapes is when the sun is setting and the light is so warm and beautiful. 

This is a piece I started after the Sussex Stitchers workshop (in a previous blog post) as I really wanted to use that Pailettes yarn with the teeny tiny sequins, and also to experiment with the two new stitches I learnt. The fabrics are a little bit choppy but I was more interested in starting to add textures than worrying about what the fabrics looked like. 

I took this piece to work on at a craft fair I was at in Ringmer, organised by the Ringmer WI, and a lady there gave me a whole bunch of different craft flower stamens! How amazing is that? I spoke to the Ringer WI last year and gave a Stitchscape talk to them, which is how I ended up being invited to have a stand at their craft fair. We had discussed using these stamens then so when she realised I was there again she rushed home and picked them up for me. 

There were several more unusual ones but I really liked these little green stamens which have a very narrow and irregularly shaped head on them. I think some of these could be classed as 'vintage' as they have a slightly aged look to them and some of the ends are falling off but it makes them look really interesting when nestled in among rolls of furnishing tassel trimming. 

The combinations of the textures also look fabulous when silhouetted against the glowing sun. I love taking photos like this to show how three dimensional these hoops are, the glitter and sparkle of the metallics, and to see what shadows are cast.

You can see the Pailettes yarn used to edge the watery fabric running right the way across the hoop. The Sussex Stitchers lady who gave me a bit of each had two colours which work really nicely when twisted and stitched down together. I've made the rest of the water slightly glittery by adding some metallic stranded threads in a whip stitch over running or back stitches.

I've also used some 100% silk threads I was given which are much shinier than the usual Anchor stranded cottons I favour. You can see this in the Cast-on Stitches (one of my newly learned ones!) making kind of an orangey coral between the shells. Basically the stitch is a hybrid between a bullion knot and a drizzle stitch. You set the length of the stitch in the same way as a bullion knot, but rather than wrapping the thread around the needle, you 'cast-on' and make little twisted loops around the needle which then creates that extra flick and texture. I've deliberately done mine so that I've put on more cast-on loops than needed to fill the stitch gap so that they loop up and I can work them to overlap and twist around. I've seen these used to create flower petals but I was thinking more of seaweed or coral for mine. 

The silk thread is also variegated which has made it especially pretty when worked in bunches like this, although the thread is very thin so it takes a while to build up enough loops. 

The other stitch I learned was called Cup Stitch where you essentially weave a little cup shape, starting with a triangle of three stitches stitched through the fabric. Once the triangle base is in place, you come up on the inside of one of the stitches, slide your needle underneath the nearest stitch and then again to make a loop. Go through the loop and pull to tighten, then make another loop on the same stitch and pull, followed by two loops (or more depending on the size of your triangle) on each of the other two base stitches. When you get back to the beginning, you basically keep going through the top of the stitches of the previous round and can work up in a spiral as high as you like! When finished you can slide your needle down through the inside of the cup, or within the stitches themselves and gently pull the thread through so the cup stands up. 

Sometimes it can be a bit difficult to see where the loops on the previous round were so I think it will take a bit of practice (had a similar feel to crochet though), and it was definitely easier to make these stitches with a thicker thread. I've used a cotton perlé thread on these ones, also because it's a single thread rather than a stranded cotton. I wonder if you could stuff them with things, a big bead might be interesting - like a stalk eye staring at you!

This isn't finished, I've got a bit more to do on it but it's nearly there! I'm not quite happy with that top section with the cup stitches so I think I need to add something else to it, just not sure what yet.