The Towans

I have finally been working through my list of to do jobs which is HUGE! One of the main things I wanted to complete was the bag design inspired by our recent visit to Gunpowder Towans on the Hayle estuary. The combination of vast dunes of the softest sands interspersed with tall clumps of spiky grasses, golden ragwort and tangled brambles, the whole set against that amazing backdrop of wide, wide seas and distant blue cliffs... you can tell it just filled my mind with images which demanded to be set onto fabric.





This is the second of my Cornish Collection, the first being Trevaunance





The Towans is the result of all my scribbles into my notebook (thank you so much Diana) once I returned home from our walk which, for an endlist list of reasons, has taken me until now to complete. The photographing of the finished article was another story all together and all I will say is 'rain'.





I decided to use a mix of hand and freehand machine embroidery for this bag as I wanted the sharpness of the grasses to contrast with the softer elements of sand, etc. Hand embroidery always reflects a softness of texture for me and so I turned to this for the line of text which reads 'soft the sand as grasses bend', using a bright yet gentle green to imitate the less harsh grasses bordering the dunes. The freehand nature of the machine embroidery however gave the spikiness I needed to the parts which left my legs scratched due to my stupidity in wearing sandals on such a landscape. By clicking on the images this blend of textures becomes clearer (I hope!).





And so there you have it - one more job off the list, one more to the collection and one more step forward in developing my design work which I am just loving. I really want to push this side of things and find my own style, something I think is coming as I allow my creative side to stretch and grow, constantly using the very things around me which have inspired me for as long as I can remember and exploring how to interpret them onto fabric. Of course, this will always involve a use of other things which inspire me - embroidery and the way in which stitches work both with and against textiles is a constant source of fun, as is the play of text against this backdrop and the meanings of words themselves; so many layers to every line of text...don't you just love language? Sorry, got carried away there.





I'll sign off for now, but I can't tell you what a creative journey that felt like - just wonderful.

Bye for now
Pipany x