A finished scroll of our NC500 trip ...

 I love a summer holiday project or two or three when my students & I have a break from each other & it is a luxury to fill time as I please. This year, due to commitments, we have not taken an overseas holiday but had a wonderful 10 days exploring the North Coast of Scotland on the NC500 route. read all about it on the previous posts with links here 

I shared that I had decided to do a sewing scroll on a long 1.5m linen fabric length, originally just as a small scroll. However, once I got started, I realised how much I was enjoying the randomness of just doing it that soon the whole scroll was covered in stitching doodles. 

We often have the idea that creative work has to be 'perfect' but there is so much more joy (in my opinion) in the imperfect creative act where the process forgets about judgements & fear about 'is it good enough?' and just goes with the pleasure to create something that has no purpose other than to give pleasure to the one making it.  Comparison & perfection is the thief of joy so it is best to just go where the process takes you. Sometimes it is about stepping out of your comfort zone & trusting your intuition. 

I made a conscious decision not to add fabrics to the scroll itself because it is a huge distraction for me to select fabrics from my generous stash & I get too side-tracked or overthink the colours etc which means everything grinds to a halt. 

I decided on thread stitching only but added details with the sheep wool I picked off a fence & the shells I found on the beach along the way because they belonged to the journey.  A large shell & piece of driftwood I picked up on various beaches was set aside for the scroll handle. 

I found a lovely bit of fabric in my stash with the same colours with a scene of trees & sheep & decided to machine embroider some of the place names to attach to the end of the scroll. After an initial mishap when the bobbin thread bunched up & had to be cut loose & unpicked, it went well & I managed to  do many of the place names with just one spelling mistake (you have to select all the characters for each word & save before it stitches so it can be tricky as you don't see the whole word together ...) The green thread was a good, gentle choice & the colour doesn't jar ... 

I bought in a piece of pale lilac linen from a trusty ebay seller I use for my linen bits & decided I wanted to hand stitch it to the scroll front. None of my threads looked just right but on a trip to our county town of Shrewsbury, I saw a variegated thread & knew it was the perfect colours.  Blanket stitch uses so much thread that I bought 3 lots but used up a whole one only. The rest will be used on other things as it is lovely colours. 

The edges were done with 3 strands of this cotton in blanket stitch to hold the various layers together,  then the decision on how to attach it. The end fabric was merely rolled over, the drift wood attached by stitches at the top & bottom then the large shell attached to the driftwood & scroll. Easier than I anticipated. 

The scroll will roll from the one end to the drift wood / shell side & ties with a 'made in Scotland' ribbon I already had. 

I am rather pleased with it, a project purely for my own joy & that is surely the best way to doodle with thread. I hope you have enjoyed the journey with me. Thank you for stopping by, 

Dee 🪡🧵🐚🚙