Lakeside

These cards were really fun to make. I would absolutely love to camp here, wouldn't you? Green trees behind and trickling water out the front - it's like something out of Swallows and Amazons! In a minute a little sailing boat will drift past.

I've already kind of introduced these cards in my last post so I'll jump straight in to my process for those interested. I started off with the tents, stitching in my tent shadow first with long straight stitches in navy blue where I expected the middle of the tent to be so that when I pulled back and stitched that flap, the inside would be dark and shadowed. 

The tent itself is a simple triangle of felt, back stitched with one strand along the two visible edges. The door flap was made by cutting a slit in the centre of the triangle tent shape, rolling back one side and stitching it into the rolled position, then adding another little stitch at the bottom of the other side so that it didn't flap around and move. It's made a huge difference and added some character to the cards, rather than just having a stitched door line.

The next bit for me was the shadow of the tent on the water. I stitched in my water lines first with a white thread, making a rough triangle in the blue layer - they aren't completely obvious as I've gone through my straight stitches with several other colours, trying to use darker ones at the bottom of the card where the deeper water would be, and lighter ones moving up toward the line of the bank. A DMC Silky thread has been used all over to add a little bit of a shimmer to the water itself.

At the edge, I've layered together a length of embroidery thread and the last scraps of the Pailettes sequinned yarn that I had leftover from the bit I was given at the Sussex Stitchers workshop in May, using a green thread to match the batik layer above the water and to offset the turquoise blue of the Pailettes yarn. These have been couched together to form the bank edge and to also hide any rough edges of the bottom of my tents. 

Little river plants have been added with green straight stitch stems, using two strands in the clumps further away and three strands in the closest (bottom) clump to make it visibly appear bigger and closer. Tiny cream/pale yellow french knots have been added to help match the paleness of the tent and also the use of the french knots further above to create a bit of balance in the design. 

Two colours of green have been used for the french knots in the green layer, one strand of each to give the knots a bit more interest. I've also tapered off the knots, making them smaller as they work down into the layer - starting with 4 twist at the top to give the edge of the fabric good coverage, and then tailing off to 3, 2 and 1 twists at the bottom. 

Because the top fabric already has the patterns of trees and trunks, I've left that stitch-less to contrast against the heavy stitching in the water layer. Sometimes less is more!

Ooh I almost forgot, at the last minute I also added a single strand of DMC Metallic thread to the water in pale blue so there are actually two different types of shiny/shimmery thread in there to give it a little bit of light and movement. It's very touchable that section, you just kind of want to stroke it all of the time!

So, the final stitch run down for these cards is; french knots, back stitch, straight stitch and couching. Not a huge long list this time, just lots of fun with a few stitches and the different weights of line.