The Handmade Home: The Anniversary Applique Illustration 'This Is Us'

Once upon a time, a red-headed girl-about-town met a rugged musician from the Midlands.  A most unexpected romance ensued between these two souls and, within months, she gave up her fast-paced life in London and moved to Nottingham, to start a new life and later, not mention a tiny bit surprisingly, their very own family.

Looking back, I can hardly believe two years have flown by in the blink of an eye.  As with every relationship, there have been hard times, lovely times and down right hilarious times!  So, for an anniversary gift this year, I decided to put my crafting head on and create something really special.

It isn't always easy to restore your relationship to its former glory, once a baby becomes involved.  It's not always a bad thing, but time for just the two of you, sort of goes out the window, especially when your other half is holding down a full time job AND working as a musician too.  So I decided, with this in mind, to create an abstract applique illustration, based on one particular snowy night in Nottingham, that I know we both hold dear in our hearts.  The result, was exactly what I wanted.

I wanted to commemorate this lovely evening!

Working with just three colours, black, white and navy; I began with a black canvas base and covered with a thick navy cotton.  I created a simple snowy scene with off-white felt and off-set this, with some black shadowy trees and two black shadowy figures.  Lastly, I created the pinnacle of my piece, a depiction of my striped umbrella, with a piece of striped fabric I had lying around, backed with felt to create more depth.

Once I had pinned these onto the canvas, I cut out more 'definite' white chunks of felt, again to add depth to the piece.  I hand-sewed each piece on with straight stitching, to create a sort of 'shabby chic' edge to the image.  Finally, to represent a 'snowfall', I stitched some simple pearl white sequins to the picture.

I called this piece 'This Is Us'; a reminder for us both really of how special we are to each other and, no matter what changes may bring our way, deep down we will always be us!

I absolutely loved doing this applique - I liked the simplicity of this design and I would be really keen to try more complex ideas with patterned fabrics.  I'm planning my next design too - I can't wait to get started!

I guess the image speaks for itself - and the only thing left to say is a big Happy Anniversary to Mr Peachy, for all that we have and all that will be!