Textile Postcard

Sending stitches through the post is such fun !

I remember the great Spanish holiday postcards with lace fabric dresses on the flamenco dancers. They were an fancy extra dimension arriving through the letterbox.

I swop fabric postcards from time to time with crafty friends and it is always such a delight to get one.

This one started off with some silk I eco dyed in February. I picked a section that had the pink from rose petals and the deep imprints from my rusty antique keys.

It begged for a little dark Victorian lace to echo the rust and deepen the wild scene !

I choose rich embroidery threads for the 'wild' flowers growing in this landscape.

Maybe they bloom once a year and have magic properties . .  or they are picked for a special spell . . . well that's my story anyway !!!

It was posted today . . . gobbled up by big green mouth of the local postbox !!

Heading for Co Wicklow.

"Wild Lace" . . . planted.

These two cream Victorian lace flowers were hand embroidered 130 years ago . . how wild is that ! They are the main elements in this embroidery piece.

I choose as a background some silk I eco dyed with petals, leaves and a little rust.

I liked the soft pinks from the roses and the dark deep browns and purples from the rust.

I also like to ‘anchor’ my embroidery onto 3mm natural felt as a neutral base - it is also a dream to embroider into. I made a fabric collage on the silk with Victorian cream flowers, a little strip of Edwardian lace and some small script cotton print.

I ‘grew’ extra elements from the lace flowers with stem stitch and couching.

A few seed beads, lots of French knots and more stitched tall flowers to make a wild meadow. I added some Victorian black netting to link the dark and the light areas.

.  .  .  and so the two old lace flowers have a new wild home.

The finished embroidery is stitched to a deep 20cm x 20cm grey canvas.