Last weekend I shared my new Travelling Sketchbook with you, I’ve chosen a theme of flowers. It will circulate around a group in our Embroiderers Guild and everyone will put a piece of their work in it, so in a few months time when it returns to me I will hopefully have a whole garden of embroidered flowers.

I realised when I posted it that I hadn’t shared with you my Mountains sketchbook since it returned from it’s travels. This was my first experience of a travelling sketchbook and I really enjoyed stitching a little embroidery for each persons book as it came into my possession.

This book did two circuits. I shared the first ones here but here’s a few photos to remind you.

The sketchbooks then did another shorter circuit…

The first entry is so simple yet so brilliant for my theme, in fact I had wondered about doing something similar before, it’s the outlines of mountains that mean something to her. Anyone who climbs or just loves mountains knows their outlines, they are so recognisable. So Margorie has thought of all the mountains she has come across in her life, written a little story and embroidered the outline in back-stitch, there’s the Eiger, Mount Teide, Snowdon,Vesuvius, American Rockies, Mount Fuji and the far Cuillins. 

Jill stitched a lovely picture of Ben Loyal, Jill is Scottish and explained the different classifications of Scottish mountains, Munroes, Corrbets and Grahams. Ben Loyal is a Corrbet, being 2507 feet high. I love the different stitches Jill used to get the image of the landscape, such as sorbello stitch for the rugged rocks. The deer are very sweet too!

Jill Maloney

Gail drew a wonderfully intricate picture based on a view in the Northern Lake District, wouldn’t this be a great starting point for a blackwork embroidered picture?

Gail Marsh

Angela included a hand coloured map and an lovely embroidery of the scenery as she walked the West Highland Way in Scotland. It’s a collage of mainly tweeds which are a traditional Scottish fabric, giving great texture to the piece, she embellished with stitching, representing the heathers, streams, forests she saw on her walk.

Angela Harrison

So my book is pretty much full, I’ll pop a few mountain photographs on any blank pages, maybe a poem or two to complete my sketchbook of Mountains. It’s lovely to have something like this as so many friends each gave a little bit of themselves to create it. I shall treasure it.