First I decided I wanted a local scene to illustrate Summer. I found a a water view image with some cute boats that I really liked and started sketching on a 12 inch square sheet.
The image I used is copyrighted but here is a link to it.
I really wanted to imply the horizon over the sea so I put a bit of sea horizon with the sun over it. I looked up images for Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise skylines and copied it to fit as best I could. Normally I only see the view from Coolangatta beach but this view is from the ocean inland. I wanted to signify the great expanse of ocean somehow.
I had the boats in and a swimmer but when DH said we have never seen boats down there I knew he was right so I put in a windsurfer. In reality I have only seen normal surfers and para surfers but I just liked the sail idea. By studying the pictures I found on google of windsurfers I realised I needed to make the window sections on the sail. I thought the date on the sail looked good.
I was so pleased I could find all the fabrics I needed in my stash. I never thought I would find a use for the border fabric but I think it is perfect on this block.
I cut a strip for the sky and used a paper pattern piece for the beach.
Using the edge of the sea as a guide cut a piece of fusible applique paper in reverse. Fuse this onto a big piece for the sea and cut out the curve.
Fuse the sea to the sand along the curve.
I marked where the seam line between sand/sea and sky would be using the layout design.
Trim straight across 1/4 above the seam line.
Place the skyline using the layout design. Stitch around the top. The bottom edge will be in the seam.
I seamed the sky to the sea/sand. The sun was a tight fit so I added it last when the border was on.
I stem stitched the waves in no.5 pearl. Because the blue was dark I used white chalk to mark the waves for sewing.
I stitched the date on the sail in 2 strands of embroidery floss with back stitch.
The patterns gave me some problems. It was fine for me. I scanned the pages as jpegs then printed them. The size was 94% after scanning so I just printed at 100%.
When I came to share them the size changed a lot.
You can get the jpg's on my blog post.
valspierssews
