We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country – and so close to our favourite beach in all the world – Lannacombe. I am sure there are more beautiful beaches, certainly with warmer water(!) But Lannacombe has sand for Ben to charge around on, rock pools for Amy to explore and warm rocks for me to sit and picnic on away from the two naughty newfies. When I was a full-time career woman I used to dream of hazy afternoons on this beach, and now to be less than 10 minutes drive away is a dream come true for me.
Another dream from those days was to be able to spend time on my passion for needlework – having time to create and develop my own designs and the opportunity to share them with others. I adore colour and love vintage children’s illustrated books – it’s wonderful that today’s technology breathes new life into these old images and lets them live again, sometimes in unexpected ways.
The two images above were taken from a vintage, out of copyright, children’s book of poetry “Over the Rainbow Bridge” by Louise Marshall Haynes. They’ve always been two of my favourites, representing the dream I cherished for so many years. Here I’ve restored them using PaintShop, added some text and printed them onto white cotton sheeting. I added the text in a thin, grey font that I could stitch over with 3 strands of floss without the printing showing through.
Then I turned the little boy on the beach into a new journal cover for this summer, simply stitching the text with back stitch, trimming the design with pinking shears and appliquing onto vintage ticking to make a seaside-inspired journal cover. I used the same technique as my Sweet Home Journal Cover Tutorial to make the cover, but didn’t use any wadding as the ticking was quite stiff. I also added a cotton ribbon marker at the spine of the journal.
If you’d like to download the images to use yourself (complete with text for embroidery), then just click here for the free pdf. If you can’t transfer them to fabric, then why not print onto stiff paper or light card, then embroider the text to make a wonderful greetings card?
Hope the sun comes out again soon! Sew long…
That picture is so lovely
You really inspire me
Julie xxxxxxxx
What a brilliant idea for the journal covers and such darling images. Thank you for the links for recreating them. You are so very talented and creative.
May I ask, how is Amy?
Hello, Linda Armenti from Roswell, GA USA here. I just found your blog(s) thru CRAFT showing your wonderful Groovy Bird pattern which I immediately printed off. I've just read thru most of your stuff and love the pictures and where you live is just a dream. Oh my, my husband might mind but if you ever need a housekeeper I'm here for you! (just kidding) I've downloaded several designs to try as I love vintage as well, and even though my son is 17 I like to make the cute stuff to give away in the neighborhood. Lovely blog.
Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave today [03 May 03:00pm GMT]. Thanks, Maria
"to the lovely sea and the sky, and all I ask…" probably a bad paraphrase of the lovely poem, but your journal cover is such a wonderful reminder.