Embroidered Plaza cinema

I keep saying that I must write a new blog post. I’ve been saying it for the last three weeks and this is the first time I’ve actually sat down and started typing anything. I’ve not been slacking though: on days where I’ve not been wiped out by the heat or fatigue, or been otherwise kept busy by my brother visiting, I’ve been doing more of the Stitch Club workshops, and making cards for several summer birthdays.

This is one of those cards. Although I have cut down on the number of cards I make, this was for a 60th birthday — one of two this year — and really couldn’t be ignored. The design on the card is the old Plaza cinema in Port Talbot, a place that the artist recipient has drawn himself, so I thought I would have a go at creating an embroidered version. Partly inspired also by the architectural embroidery of Charles and Elin.

It took a few attempts to come up with a design that included enough of the building to be recognisable while also being of a manageable size and complexity to fit on a card. As it is, this is one of the bigger cards I have made: A5 in size, 14.8cm x 21cm or roughly 6″ x 8″.

Once I had transferred the design — I seem to have settled on lightbox plus pencil as my primary transfer method — I kept the embroidery simple. The majority of the stitching is backstitch with a single strand of embroidery thread. Some bits are done with more than one strand, and the numbers are done in whipped backstitch to get a smoother finish. I did the green line in chain stitch to get a thicker line and the black area at the bottom was filled with lines of stem stitch.

The trickiest part was figuring out how to turn it into a card. I’ve made a few embroidered cards since this one and have refined the technique in the process. Now that I’m happy with it, I’ll try to remember to take some photos when I make the next one and then write it up here on the blog.