Thursday, 29 May 2025

Treyarnon Bay Stitchscape

 

It's finished! One of the biggest Stitchscapes I've ever stitched (25cm hoop), and that has taken me many months to chip away at, is finally having its ta-daah moment. Huzzah! 
I really love these bigger seashell hoops and, whilst I'm typing, I've realised that I quite miss having a large project lurking in the corner of the room waiting for little pockets of time to stitch on. I have a load of big hoops hiding in the back of my wardrobe so I may need to dig one out and fill it with shells and rockpools and other fun bits. 

The name for this Stitchscape comes from a beach in Cornwall which is known for its sandy beach and large rockpools. I don't think I've been to this particular place but this is definitely an incentive to go!


I really need to go shell searching again as my stash is looking a little bit depleted. There is something so lovely about going out looking for beautiful shells and interesting sea treasure and then being able to stitch it straight into your hoop - after a little wash -  what a way to make a holiday memory last. 

This one was purely inspired by the need to create a shell themed Stitchscape so I rummaged through my fabric stash to find some coastal colours, settling on a classic watery blue and rocky brown selection. The shells were arranged and stitched down next as they are the predominant part of the piece and there is no point stitching all of the fabric background and then plopping a big ol' shell on top. 

I may have got a tad carried away with stitching my textures down first though, especially as I had just received a present from Reece of amazing beads from Old Bicycle Shop Beads which I was desperate to try out. There is nothing more irritating later on than having to keep unlooping your stitching from around the pokey-uppy bits you stitched down first because you were impatient. 



Around the shells I've stitched a tangle of furnishing trimmings, dagger beads, craft stamens (with fun clear little beaded ends), cotton scrim (the green stuff) and some other fun coloured beads. I especially like the flat topped blue ones.
 
Gorgeous shiny boucle yarn has been couched down to help create a frothing waters edge, and french knots and little tube beads have been added to that for some sparkle and fizz. 
Working downward from the shells, the top water fabric just has single strand rows of running stitch through it, following the curving lines of the shells so that the lines kind of crash and meld into each other and have a sort of wave shape. 
The bottom blue fabric still has running stitch across it, but in two strands so it is bolder and it is much smoother to kind of hint at calmer waters further away from the beach. The fabric edge still has quite a lot going on though with couched embroidery threads and un-spiralled purl wire, silk throwsters waste (the blue fluffy stuff) and folded clear sequins with beads keeping them on. It kind of reminds me of the seaweed that floats near the edges of water sometimes, ready to wrap its fronds around an unwary leg. 

 

The shells are resting on two different fabric layers, the bottom of which has a grid pattern on it, a little bit like a computer chip or something where there is a mix of squares and rectangles. Where it pokes through the shells and other fun bits, some of those shapes are just lines so have been covered in whipped back stitch, others left just as back stitch, and some smaller shapes filled in with satin stitch - all facing in the same direction so that they go against the direction of the lines. The little bit of fabric edge you can see has been edged with bullion knots. 

Above this fabric is a kind of marble print with crackles printed in gold metallic. I have used a single strand and picked out some of those crackles, stitching back stitches just next to the gold lines to give a little bit more texture. 
Cotton scrim in a dark peachy purple has been stitched along the fabric edge, twisting in some pearl bead trim so that it appears and disappears along the edge. I've made clusters of cast-on stitch to kind of look like crusty corals or sea fungus (not really sure what they are, they just look cool) using a perle thread and making them longer than they should be so that they bunch up and twizzle a bit more than they should. It feels fantastic to run your fingers over!
Little matte beads have been stitched in and around this layer as well. 


The next layer, with the pebble print, took AGES to finish - mainly because I was satin stitching each of the pebbles on the print, working backwards and forwards along the row and filling them in in slightly different shades. I didn't end up stitching the entire layer in the end because I was fed up with working on it but I think that creates a nice depth to the layer with little shady holes between the pebbles. I've worked moss stitch to give fluffy green bits over the pebbles, using two colours in the needle at once (and I think two strands of each at a time) so that you get a fun mottled effect. 
This fabric has been edged with a leatherette cord couched down with a couple of colours of beigey brown. 


The brown batik fabric has a few different things going on as well. I started by working stem stitch around the splodge lines in the print, then filled some of them in with two strand seed stitch, and other areas in single strand seed stitch. I've then got a single strand whip stitch worked through the seeds, and french knots drifting around the lines to build up texture. More french knots have been used to finish the fabric edge. 


The three sky layers are equally simple, the bottom blue layer just has single strand back stitches along the watermarks in the batik fabric and is edged with a slightly shiny rattail cord, the creamy fabric is whipped back stitch along lines in the fabric print, with bullion knots to the top, and the white fabric at the top is edged with blanket stitch and just a couple of simple single strand rows of running stitch at the bottom to fill in a gap without adding any heavy texture. 

Fly stitch birds have been scattered through the sky to finish it off.


I've had so much fun with the different trimmings and stitches in this. Seascapes are a brilliant way of just chucking in lots of bits and bobs and everything goes. I have more gorgeous beads too that I'd like to stitch into something special. 

So, the stitch run down for this is; blanket stitch, running stitch, whipped back stitch, bullion knots, fly stitch, couching, back stitch, french knots, stem stitch, seed stitch, satin stitch, moss stitch, cast-on stitch and beading.

It's been a longwinded joy to stitch - watch this space for another one!

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