A few weeks ago I bought an old OS map of our local area. The idea was to take a section, draw on it like people do on old book pages and then frame it for C to take to university with her.
Our local picture framers has off cuts of mount board which are free and I quickly found a pirece to suit. What to draw on the map was much more problematical and I struggled to come up with an idea until I began to doodle on a piece of scrap paper and settled on leaves.
I’m embarrassed to show it to you as my execution fell far short of my vision for it. Fortunately for me C is delighted with it.
The pen was scratchy, I tried to do it in a rush and I didn’t do it with confidence. I can show you this as I’ve already given it to her because the map also shows the village where her ‘bestie’ lives and so a second picture will be created from this same map. I hope C does better with her picture.
One of the many items that have been identified for uni is a shopping bag as she’ll be shopping for her own groceries from now on. I made lots of fabric bags some years ago from roll end pieces of upholstery fabric and they’re still going strong so C will take a couple of those but I also wanted to make a thinner bag with shoulder length handles that she could roll up and put in her handbag.
Now we’re onto textiles I’m much more in my comfort zone. Again, this was done in a hurry as I didn’t want her to see it before it was finished and she wasn’t out for long! We have 3 cats which I know will be sorely missed so it felt like the right image to use.
It’s free machine embroidery onto calico with a few lines of decorative stitches underneath. They’re the sum total of the fancy stitches offered on my old Bernina. I decided all stitching would be done in black so I wanted it to look a little fancier than running stitch. I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out and C is ecstatic, what more could I ask.
I enjoyed creating the bag so much I have another idea to use up the leftover fabric. Sorry I can’t say more, but I believe she reads this blog occasionally and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.