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I became a bit concerned with the extent of the fairly dour background fabric. I chose it for durability and blending with the lining fabric (as well as availability in my stash!) but began to see its limitations. I decided it needed quite a bit of sky. I began couching some
wiggly wool threads I acquired out of curiosity from Australian Needle Arts then added some needle-felted wool roving.
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Next a patch of flannel flowers, giving me a chance to use some green seed beads from the
Stitchy Box Just the Threads shipment my daughter gave me. As soon as I saw those beads I thought 'flannel flower centres'!
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The stand of flowers in the centre gave me a chance to use shisha mirrors. I had mislaid the ones I had originally acquired for this purpose so had to order some more online - they are not in ready supply in Adelaide thread shops. I'm happy with the results - and there are lots of hidden "j"s in this foliage to satisfy the requirement that this design be based around our initial.
Above the patch of flowers I added a sheep - using some of the stumpwork technique I learned in 2015 at an
RSN day-course- a felt base covered in French knots using six strands of cotton, blending two different colours.
No horns on this one - a ewe, not a ram.
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I then went all out on the sky - filling as much as I could, using Bokhara, chain and reverse chain and a bit of couching of the wiggly wool. A hank of variegated blue shiburi thread came in useful.
I soon realised that I had a problem with the flowering gum tree. I either had to put in more foliage to provide a solid block-out of the sky, or I had to add sky behind the tree. Had I planned the sky from the beginning, I would have put the sky layer in first. The shiburi thread proved useful for weaving behind the existing stitching.
By now I was set to fill in the whole landscape. It took a while to finish the sky and fill in the land behind the trees. I did it largely without a hoop, so it needed blocking when I finished. I am, nevertheless, very pleased with it.
My lining fabric is a print of Australian wildflowers. It seemed a pity to only use it as lining, so I cut large piece, added a zip and created a pocket on the back.
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The construction instructions were quite explicit. For the most part I followed them. In order to make the lining more visible I reduced the turnover of the outer fabric, bringing the lining closer to the top of the bag. I also added a layer of wadding between the outside and lining.
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I didn't manage to catch the lining in the seams of the false placket sides. I decided not to undo and redo them as the lining was holding the internal shape anyway. The tacking, while it had provided excellent guidance for construction, did prove a bit difficult to remove.
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There is a loose lining-covered panel in the base to hold the shape. I used a piece of plastic cut from a document folder. I also tacked it down at the corners to keep it in place.
This is the finished item. It has been a bit of a long haul. I'm pleased to be taking it in for assessment tomorrow - and very pleased to have learned so much about embroidering landscape. I plan to use this bag to carry all my B2B supplies and working project.