Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop

Today I am taking part in my first blog hop!
Katy and Laura are now both on their way to the Sewing Summit in Salt lake City from opposite ends of the world. They are also planning a 'Thelma and Louise style' Road Trip (at least I hope that's the style they are planning!) and decided that EPPing would be the best way to pass the time, and wouldn't it be great to use the amazing sites and landscapes they are going to see as inspiration for their sewing?
What a great idea! Here's some words from the girls...

This post is part of the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop.  From 1st October - 30th November we are hopping all over the world EPP-ing in some fantastic locations.  Check out the full list here and be sure to check out the other participants. On 30th November it's over to you to link up for a chance to win these fabulous prizes! Sponsored by Paperpieces.com, FabricwormPink Castle Fabrics ,  Marmalade Fabrics, the Fat Quarter Shop, WantItNeedItQuilt, and Aurifil.

Full details for competition entry can be found here.

Now I've been reading some of the other (fabulous) posts and everyone has been using photos from really exotic locations, such as Sarah Fielke's African trip, which she posted about yesterday.

But, as a hard working business owner in very straightened financial times, I can't remember the last time I had an exotic holiday. However, I do happen to live right beside one of the most famous, iconic bridges in the world. The Forth Rail Bridge.

And my husband, Jonathan Avery, is a very talented photgrapher who has taken photos of the bridge many times. So let's just pretend that I am on a holiday to Scotland and have a look at all the amazing holiday snaps my DH took!

I remember the craze for using the colour palette software that swept through blogland a few months back. I never got a chance to join in then so I've had lots of fun trying out some of Jonathan's photos here.

One of the problems is that the default colour in Scotland is generally grey. And though the bridge itself is painted a lovely red shade, that can often be overwhelmed by the greyness in the landscape and sky.

So to come up with some interesting patchwork I had to pick photos with a bit of colour in, like this gorgeous sunset.

Of course the other reason I chose the Forth Bridge was all the wonderful geometry in it's design. I wanted to have a go at designing my own EPP pattern and realised I could incorporate some of the diamond and triangle shapes from this incredible feat of engineering. I mean it really is an amazing structure and very beautiful - I do hope you agree! I never get fed up of seeing it.

Eventually I chose the photo with the vibrant reds and blues and the Saltire, as it's design echoed the shape in the centre of each bridge 'diamond'. 

I had been using the Degraeve software for all the photos above, but Jonathan found this other one that gave even more colours, called Photocopa.

Here's the fabrics I picked out from my stash.

I then spent a couple of very happy hours playing around with shapes and colours. 

I used this graph paper from Incompetech.

It was much harder than I thought to incorporate geometry from the bridge in to a pleasing design. But in the end I decided on the pattern above which once made up with fabric looks like this...

The red and grey in the middle is meant to represent the centre's of the bridges's diamonds, and this way up...

... It looks a bit like the bridge itself and you get the Saltire too. 

I am not sure what this will become but I will keep going until more of the design emerges.

there will be a linky party for the Blog Hop on 30th November (when everyone get's a chance to win amazing prizes!) so I hope to have something finished (or ongoing if it looks like it might be a quilt!) by then.

I do hope you can all see a little bit of the Forth Bridge in my pattern (Jonathan's not sure!) and have enjoyed this Travellin' Picstitch ramble. Don't forget to check out all the other posts here (there is one every day for 2 whole months!), and it's over to Kirsty at you had me at bonjour tomorrow!