Cape Landscapes

Hello everyone, hope all is good with you?

This week I am pleased to let you know that at long last the first two Cape Landscape kits are available in the shop.

These fine art embroidery designs are the first of this kind in my collection. The difference between these designs and my other patterns are that they are printed in full colour on to the fabric. This gives you the option of stitching only the foreground elements and leaving the background (sky, mountains etc) unstitched, or you can decide how much of the design you want to stitch.

They are based on scenes from our beautiful, diverse Western Cape in South Africa, but some of the scenes may resemble scenes in your own or other parts of the world.

They are the accumulation of many months of creating, researching and testing of colour prints. Each design is an original – the drawings are based on photographs and a bit of artistic license(:). I compose, draw and paint each one using a digital drawing program on my PC, which took some time to master! The designs are based on the Naive style of art with vibrant, colours that are sure to lift your spirits while you stitch.

Each part of the design is stitched using different stitches such as long and short, split stitch, french knots or straight stitch which creates a lovely two dimensional effect as seen below.

The instructions are easy to follow as they are presented a bit like “painting by numbers”. Each Step shows the thread colours used and instructions for the stitching, so even if you don’t have much experience with Needlepainting you will find the directions easy to follow. I really loved stitching these projects, they are quite simple to embroider, are very portable and don’t take too much time to complete.

Colour Guide

I used DMC stranded cotton for the design. I have listed the colours I used in DMC but it is not essential that you use these exact shades, you could also match up the closest shades in Anchor, Cosmo or any brand of thread you like as long as it is similar to the colours in the print. In the instruction book you will find a colour guide like this.

One of the challenges I faced was obtaining a good colour print on to the embroidery fabric – I use a sublimation technique which is permanent, but it was not clear on linen so after several trials I commissioned a company in Europe to print the design and we settled on a good quality, lightweight cotton twill which works well. This fabric is really a joy to stitch on – it does not pucker and provides a nice sturdy background for the stitching, without the need for a backing fabric. You can see that the print is very clear and vibrant?

There are several more designs in the pipeline which will be available as and when they are ready. These designs are only available in kit form as it is not possible to provide them as digital downloads, due to the need for the colour print. The kit will be shipped to you via Fedex courier and can be ordered online from the shop.

Each kit is beautifully presented in a box with a picture of the project and these contents:

• Piece of printed fabric that has been overlocked ready to stitch.
• A full colour printed instruction booklet.
• A colour guide.
• A packet of 20 Bohin size 10 sharps needles.
• A white mount to frame your embroidery.

Framing Mount

Included is a white mount to complete your design ready for framing. Alternatively, you could mount it in a hoop. These are small designs, so don’t take up too much space and would look great grouped together on a wall or individually. They would also make great a gift for someone special.

Once you have had a chance to stitch them, I would love to get your feedback on these designs, so I know if you would like more of this format in future. Till next time, wherever you are in the world, keep smiling and happy stitching!

Trish