A group of friends from my C&G course still meet monthly. We make a small postcard sized piece on a theme each month just to keep those of us less good at motivating ourselves working. I have to admit that, even with such a small piece and a deadline, I have still been poor at doing these.
However, next week we meet, and this month the theme is summer. I have planned several different pieces in my head, but they got no further. One of the group does a truly inspiring mini-sketchbook for each them. We all sigh and say we must do the same and never do. So, all these thoughts don't even make it to paper.
Yesterday I was hunting on the computer for a particular photo and came across one I took in Scarborough a few summers ago. They have some lovely beach huts and two women had set up a table with bright cloth and a vase of flowers and were enjoying their tea in the sunshine. I asked if I could take their picture, thinking it would a lovely source of information.
So, this little postcard is based on that idyllic hot summer moment.
I started by drawing the picture with felt pens. I find drawing a scene helps me be sure of the spatial arrangement and points of interest. I then found a scrap of artist canvas, found a new sewing machine needle (that took a hunt) and a wash-out fabric marking pen. I was going to just do free drawing with the machine but it is so long since I have done any embroidery with the machine that I drew the rough sketch first. I then stitched with black thread, washed the cloth and left it to dry.
I gave away vast amounts of fabric recently due to an impending house move, so have fewer pieces of cloth to chose from. I thought the table cloth, vase and flower, and the beach hut doors should be fabric snippets, and the rest left as stitch. Fortunately the stack of fabric and sundries I was going to take to College is still here, and it includes a lot of ties I painted for Rod. It occurred to me that if I just kept those I would have access to a lot of different colours in small amount, so this will be my source for small bits of cloth.
I added a bit of colour for some of the doors, the table cloth and the flower. I did make an error on the blue and red door but I didn't spot that until I had sewed it up (they should be shorter) and I decided not to unpick the envelope to restitch it. The reverse has a note from these two ladies to a friend - done as always too hastily.
