Wednesday 27 February 2013

Embroidered letters…

So, I had this idea and I wasn’t sure if it would work, or if it was even possible with my level of skill.

I’ve made a few prototype porcelain pots that look like this…

IMG_4207

See those recesses in the top? Well, the plan is to fill those with embroidery. Specifically embroidered writing.

You see, I’ve always had a thing for love letters. Not ones I’ve received because, well, I haven’t received any. And anyway when you don’t know the back story or what happened next, a love letter becomes a fantastic, romantic story in itself. Did they live happily ever after? What happened next?

Love letters from the war are beautiful things. They are a strange mixture of sentiment and everyday banality. As though they'd love to write more of the sentiment but they need to pretend that everything is normal, everything’s ok.

I’ve bought a few from a lovely man on Ebay. I got quite obsessed with one couple for a while and had him scouring through his amazing collection for any letters between them. I’ve got about 20 from Vera to Fred between 1942 and 1944. Here’s one of them:

Vera to Fred 14.7.1942

Vera to Fred2 14.7

You should be able to to click to make them bigger.

My plan is to have some of the more everyday lines from the letters embroidered on the lid of the box, but something more loving printed onto decal and fired to the inside of the pot, like a hidden message. Both will come from the same letter and I might even include a copy of the letter with the box.

What do you think? I have wanted to combine my textiley hobbies with my ceramics for quite a while but it needed the right project and this could be it.

I’ve ordered some water soluble stabiliser and scoured my stash for some nice fabrics to practice on (pics to come later this week…)

If you’d like to see any more of my work you can visit my website here: www.beccyridsdel.co.uk, or my Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/beccyridsdel.

Well, some more letters just fell through the letterbox and they start “My darling treasure…”. Think I’m going to cry reading these.

Beccy

1 comment:

  1. I think it's a MARVELOUS idea! Are you going to embroider so it looks just like the handwriting? If you work on a close weave fabric with a tight backstitch, you should be able to get enough definition to closely mimic the actual handwriting! I can not wait to see how these work out!

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