The archaeological dig of the Roman settlement at Vindolanda has uncovered thousands of leather shoes preserved in the anaerobic layers. Wooden tablets found in the same layers give the names of some of the people who would have worn them. However, the paths and journeys trodden by each shoe are unknown. Some of the hard surfaces they may have walked on have been revealed along with the bracken carpeted floors. Today as you walk through Hadrian’s Wall country, only the flowers and trees remain.
Screen printed cotton with bark cloth appliqué. Screens made by tracing shoe sketches on to clear sticky back plastic and cutting with heat tool. Printed using thickened Procion dyes on to soda-soaked cotton. Free machine quilted in cotton and rayon. Flowers embroidered by tracing outline of painted wildflowers on to Stitch-n-Tear stabiliser, then free motion quilted with coloured thread on top and in the bobbin. Shoes, leaves, ferns, and stones quilted with white in the bobbin so that they would not show up on the reverse.
