The evolution of an idea

This is my last entry for Embroiderer's Guild Travelling Books.  The theme is WINDOWS and I have to confess that it left me stumped for ideas.  I thought of all the wonderful stained glass that I've seen in cathedrals around Europe: of the mills that inhabit the Pennine towns where I live: of tiny mullioned windows in stone cottages and huge panoramic windows in converted barns.  But then I spied a humble telephone box - there are quite a few around here, nostalgic relics of the past, lingering in gardens or converted into mini libraries.  I thought about my teenage years and of all the times that I had snuck away to have a private conversation in the days when the only telephone in the house was situated in the hallway and in full ear-shot of the rest of the household.  Of the times when I had dutifully called home whilst away at University, all the time looking through the windows of a telephone box at an unfamiliar landscape. As I sketched out ideas of snatched conversations I was reminded of Roy Lichtenstein's exuberant pop art with comic strip call-outs and polka-dot backgrounds.  I found a linen fabric with a subtle print for the background (not spots but certainly textured) and then I reverse appliqued a telephone box, cutting back the red fabric to reveal the windows.  Mottled blue fabric for the ever-changing Yorkshire sky.  My speech bubbles will be made using raised embroidery techniques - work in progress but you get the idea.