Commemorating WW1 with the Poppy Appeal and Hilary’s Blinds Country Crafts Competition

I have been working on a special creation using fabric from Hilary’s Blinds to commemorate 100 years since the outbreak of world war one.

Hilary’s Blinds Country Crafts Competition offered a square metre of one of a choice of four fabrics to be turned into an amazing creation.

I chose to select Wild Poppies Vermillion as I wanted to combine this creation with Pixie Creations involvement in the Poppy Appeal.

 

I wanted to create a picture/wall hanging. I decided that I would stretch the fabric on a wooden frame to emulate an artists canvas. To do this I first had to make the wooden frame. I cut the wood to length and securely screwed it together to make a rectangular frame.

 

I used drawing pins to stretch the “Wild Poppy Vermillion” fabric over the frame and pin it taught in place.

 

I then started to work on the additional decoration to add to the front of the piece. I wanted to put the poem “In Flanders Fields” onto the front as a focus. To do this I first typed and edited the poem into the computer and formatted it using an appropriate font choice and size. I printed this in reverse onto iron-on t-shirt printing paper.

Next I carefully ironed the poem onto a piece of plain white cotton which reverted the image to the correct orientation. This took some time as I wanted to ensure that the text was securely attached to the fabric.

 

Then I cut the white fabric with applied poem into a rectangle around the text. I wanted to highlight the word “poppies” where it appears twice in the writing so I embroidered over the writing in red and then added a red border to the fabric in blanket stitch. After that I needed to attach the poem onto the stretched fabric. To do this I carefully hand stitched around the edge using a coordinating white cotton to camouflage the sewing.

 

I also added a red lace border to the text as well as some ribbon trim. To finish the picture/wall hanging I sewed on a selection of the poppies I had made as samples for the Pixie Creations Poppy Appeal (to raise money for the Royal British Legion) Examples of the various poppies I have made so far can be seen here.

I still had some of the Wild Poppies Vermillion fabric left which I cut up and glued onto one of the boxes I have for displaying and storing the poppies.

 

I completed the creation by arranging the poppies in the decorated box.