Sissinghurst Castle Tower memory

I find my memories to be a great inspiration for making textile art. In 2009 my family and I visited Sissinghurst Castle with its wonderful gardens and tower, once home to writer Vita Sackville-West. In the tower, you can visit her workspace, which is such an inspirational room. There, I spotted this quote, that has been dear to me ever since : "Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday, and all is well." 

I wanted to make a piece as a reminder of all the lovely outings we have had as a family, and this particular day stood out as an ideal focus point.

The base fabric is composed of a lot of small pieces, old crocheted pieces, with lots of fraying edges. I used machine embroidery and hand-stitching for the castle and wall. I added some appliqué and a lot of colour with ecoline paint.

The vibrant colours of the piece reflect how I remember this day : happily!

The pieces of fabric I created, to sew together into a backing fabric with lots of interesting texture (this is a technique I learned during the workshop I did with Ruth Norburry) :