Here's what that little red scrap at the center top of the last post's picture has grown to:

To be fair, this all hasn't happened since the last post. I took that picture a couple of days before I wrote the blog entry.

This is another panel from TNCM, Plate 32:1. It's a long repeat with two reflection points. This scrap is the center of one of them. As you can see the pattern will mirror image left and right along the centermost line of the stem interlace. There's another totally different bounce line that will just make it onto this cloth, but the repeat on the other side of it won't be full cycle. I really like these extra long repeats, but they're hard to use for most modern work unless one is doing a whole length of bed linen, or wishes to stitch at gauges much smaller than most modern embroiderers attempt. The longitudinal repeat for this pattern for example is 257 units. On 14 count Aida for example, 257 stitches works out to a strip that's 18 inches long, and that's just for one repeat. I'm not much better here, stitching as I am on quite coarse 36 count linen. My repeat will be about 14 inches across, just a little bit narrower than the width of my stitched area. For the record though, this isn't the longest repeat I've got in TNCM. That one is 308 units, and is the one I want to use on my notional library curtains. Someday.

In other embroidery related news, I had forgotten that I had given my pals at the Buttery permission to post my original line unit pattern named after their house. Please respect my copyright though and don't repost the page.

Also the pattern in TNCM and available at the Buttery link above shows only a bit more than half of the fillings I worked in the swatch above. The new ones I doodled up specifically for the Do Right sampler.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

Finished!

Very simple completion here: a simple full back with a deep rod pocket at the top, and a hanging stick made from a dowel and two wooden beads. And as hinted at before - the wide green band at the top (the same heavy twill weave cotton that makes up the backing) balances out the wider strip of green embroidery at the bottom. It works. Or so I think. Oh. The sage green fabric? It's a remnant. Long time readers here have seen it before. The color in the earlier pix is truer to the real thing. There's no such thing as extra fabric or yarn, it's all just fodder for future projects.

Elder Daughter takes Do Right back to the dorm in the morning.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

The stitching on my Do-Right sampler is finished!

Now it's just a matter of finishing the thing out for display. Probably by backing it with fabric, and inserting a rod and hanging string at the top. For the record, the stitched area is approximately 14.5 x 18 inches, worked at the relatively large and quick to stitch gauge of 15 stitches per inch on 30 count linen. Back when my eyes worked better, I preferred stitching at 25 spi, but so it goes... With luck and deadlines willing, the whole thing should be totally complete and wall-ready in time for Elder Daughter to bring it back to school with her after Thanksgiving break, where it will adorn her wall, admonish her to greater excellence, and annoy the heck out of her roommate, all at the same time.

Knitting visitors here will be disappointed to hear that the itch to stitch has not yet left me, and I'll be working more of it before heading back to knitting or crochet. I am contemplating another accreted sampler of this type, this one for me.

I'm not sure what to say on the new project yet, although I'm leaning heavily towards Clarke's third law or Elbert (Roycroft) Hubbard's "An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all," but I will entertain suggestions of other similarly incongruous yet pithy non-sectarian sentiments. Feel free to post them as comments here. To head off one potential suggestion, I've already done one for The Resident Male that features "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." Eventually I'll get around to sharing pix of that one here. It's a long band sampler, done in deep red on cream linen. I doubt that 10% of the people visiting his office have read the saying.

And I'm not sure what the next one will look like. Lots depends on the length of the statement. I'm leaning towards monochrome again, possibly plain black, possibly a single color - deep green or navy blue on off-white linen, but no decisions have been made. I'm also thinking of playing with some of the antique graphed alphabets from Sajou and other European vintage stitching magazines, many of which are available here.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

Not much progress for all the days since my last post. I blame work, which has a way of expanding to fill all available free time. Still, I have made progress on the Buttery pattern strip, and so far have managed to either find in my notes or invent enough new fillings so that each diamond motif is unique - even the halfies on the pattern strip's edges.

Here's a slightly less blurry shot of the whole piece, so you can see how this panel balances the two-tone panel on the right hand side:

You can see that I'm about two courses of motifs away from finishing this strip. Then it's on to choose something narrow and lacy for the top edge. After that it's gentle hand wash to remove working grime, and finish or frame.

And in other news (and for as long as this link lasts), other house projects are in the news!

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

Very slow progress on Do Right. A bison-stampede of work related obligations has me tooling flat out, days, evenings, nights and weekends. But here and there I grab a bit of stress abatement, and stitch.

I've decided to play with the Buttery pattern. I've used most of the flower/filling designs that were published in TNCM, plus several from my old notes that didn't fit on the final as-published pattern. Now I'm off and running, drafting out more. Since I've got no obligation to stick to forms and flowers familiar to the Tudor period (or standard but imaginary geometrics), I'm playing. Some are sort of recognizable, some are just flights of fancy:

I think Elder Daughter will be especially pleased by that one truly incongruous motif.

Here's a (very blurry) shot of the whole piece, so you can see the proportions and coloring of this strip in relation to what's there:

This strip will continue straight up to the top of the currently stitched area, which means **LOTS** more flower/fruit fills.

My only moment of pause right now is that I'm thinking of picking out the acorn spot in the current strip. When I first drafted it up I committed an awkwardness. The vertical acorn has no point on it. It annoys me, and I may restitch that unit one block down and make some other adjustments so that the up-down acorn is outfitted the same as its brothers.

Aside: For those who enjoy historical patterns, check out this collection of vintage European embroidery guides. Most are graphed alphabet collections, but there are some other gems in and among the lettering - even some charts suitable for double running stitch. I'm considering a couple of the latter for my final lacy feel narrow strip across the top of this piece. And the alphabets are great. I'm thinking of doing up an entire cloth of different forms of just one letter, as the ultimate initial-laden gift sampler.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

I've finished the right hand strip on my Do-Right sampler, plotted a strip of equivalent width on the right side, and settled on a pattern. I'm using another from TNCM - the Buttery pattern (Plate 59:1). This one is original, inspired in equal parts by historical motifs, a happy communal house where many friends have lived over the years, and boredom.

The historical part is the twisted framing mechanism, with each diamond shape hole holding a different flower or fruit motif. Many of the motifs are very traditional, too. The completed pomegranate in the center of the worked strip, for example is a very common motif, and in execution would be easily accepted as an authentic motif. What's not historical is that there are no exact sources for anything in the Buttery design, not even the exact structure of my twist frame, or that pomegranate. There are historical pieces that are close, but nothing is spot on (the large number of different fills in a counted piece is for example, something for which I've never found precedent). But the overall effect isn't wildly out of phase with expected period aesthetics. I wouldn't advocate using it on a historical re-creation, but for someone with the freedom to play in the style without accountability to authenticity hawks - why not?

The Buttery part is the home of many friends over the years. Presided over by Marion and Mark, it's been the base of an ever changing constellation of people, each very different yet all living in harmony. Sort of like the collection of motifs in this piece - each unique, but each complementing the rest and contributing to the whole.

And for boredom, this is a function of having done lots of stitch by stitch repros of historical patterns. No matter how long the repeat, eventually "Are we there yet?" syndrome sets in. This piece was a think-exercise, to see how many different individual and distinct fruit or flower motifs I could come up with, given the established space constraint of the frame. The version published in TNCM has 18 different motifs. I've got a few more that didn't make it onto that page. Maybe I'll use them on this strip, or maybe I'll doodle up some others. We'll see as I begin to get to the point where I need to recycle previously stitched ones.

For the record this is the third thing I've stitched using Buttery. One was a book cover in black silk on 40-count linen, edged with black silk cording. The entire surface of the book cover was done in this pattern. I worked it around 1994/1995, around the time we moved back to the Boston area. I gave away the book cover around a blank book, as the first prize in a storytelling competition, aptly won by Richard, who coincidentally happened to be an on-again/off-again Buttery resident. I also did a small sweet bag in this pattern (sort of an Elizabethan gift bag, just big enough to hold a handkerchief or small treat). In that case I did a strip of the framing with a selected subset of the fillings at the top and bottom of the bag, leaving the center area unworked. The sweet bag was monochrome brick red stitching on a cream linen background. I forget the count, but it was also relatively fine, small enough for five motifs to march across the thing, and the bag was less than a fist wide. The sweet bag was given away as a gift, long before I began photographing my work.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

Slow going, not because working voided strips this way is slow, but because of work related time constraints. Still, I'm inching up on completion of the most current strip in Do Right:

Next is to pick out what will happen on the left, to balance the current strip, do a small bit, then extend the bottom strip across to cover the same width. I'm still not sure what exactly will happen there. Stay tuned.

And for long time readers here, I present the transformation:

Was: Is Now:

Over the past five years we've replaced the leaky roof and gutters, and the rubble driveway; removed the sheep-dip useless fence leading to the front door and the big spruce tree that was leaning on the house. We also had several near dead dangerous trees in the backyard removed, pruning the rest for the first time in three decades. We've pulled down the stucco-eating ivy and repaired the stucco, then had the house painted with a stucco-preserving finish to match the original color. We had the trim pointed in red and cream to emphasize the original lines of the house, and refinished the front door, painting it a matching red. We pulled out a flock of overgrown bushes, replanting new ones, flowers, lawn, or giant grass. We moved the mailbox and added house numbers, sawed off the gratuitous signpost (no sign, just a post); and restored the front porch.

Other improvements unseen in this shot include replacing the rotted out garage door, redoing the upstairs bath so that showers are now possible, replacing all of the wiring in the house (good-by knob and tube!), replacing the plumbing under the first floor bath so it too is now usable, insulating the attic and crawl spaces, installing attic vent fans, replacing the kitchen appliances with ones that work, replacing the furnace burner, adding a hot water boost pump so that the second floor receives heat in the winter, and relining the chimneys. All in all, the house no longer looks like some place the crazy lady up the street lives, although in fact the crazy lady up the street does live here. :)

Now FINALLY we're up to the small aesthetic things - like painting and papering. And contemplating future upgrades, like restoring the front porch - taking those odd standard 1960s windows and shingle surrounds out and putting in some sort of modern non-insulated arched windows that fill the entire space, along with a period-appropriate front door. Or redoing the quasi-finished basement. But none of that until our financial capacitors recharge.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

More progress on my Do Right sampler.

It's going slow due to mounting work-related deadline pressure, but it's moving along. Here's a close-up of the latest strip:

Half cross stitch doesn't provide anywhere near as dense a background cover as regular cross stitch or long-armed cross stitch, but it does give an interesting twill-like effect to the ground. Plus it uses far less thread.

And in the realm of improvised tools and gadgets - today's is the lowly thread reel. Flower Thread comes in pull skeins. Or I should say - alleged pull skeins. They are not as well behaved as standard 6-ply floss skeins. Because I hate putting my work down to wrestle with my materials I tend to wind each skein of the Flower Thread as I use it. This is a very traditional thing to do. Little flat thread winders of various configurations were common work basket items prior to the introduction of spooled and reeled threads. You can still buy bone, mother of pearl and wooden thread winders. They're a wonderful addition to one's general stitching ambiance, especially for those who pursue needle arts in costumed settings.

But me - I'm cheap. Very cheap. I also am mostly retired from SCA events these days, and no longer need to keep up appearances. I make my own thread reels from business cards. Business cards are a renewable resource for me, new ones cross my desk almost daily. Once I transcribe the giver's information into an electronic storage, I have little need for the small cardboard rectangles. But they are made from thicker, higher quality paperboard than index cards, manila folders, magazine inserts or other similar items. As a result business cards make sturdier, more durable thread reels. And did I mention that they're free?

One business card yields two thread reels. As you can see from my samples, precision snipping is optional.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery

Yes, in addition to finishing up the phoenix graph I posted yesterday, I was able to make a bit of progress on the sampler over the weekend. Not much because work obligations intruded, but some.

In this typically blurry String photo you see the center strip, with the handkerchief panel stretching across a wider area. I've started filling in another strip panel on the right. Since I'm winging this rather than planning it out fully prior to execution, I wanted to begin that panel so I would know how wide to make the bottom strip. There will be another two-tone panel of some type (pattern as yet unspecified) at the left hand edge. I'm going to try to make these both the height of the entire sampler, minus perhaps another as-yet unidentified narrow strip across the entire top.

This new pattern, like the majority of the others is pictured in The New Carolingian Modelbook. This one is the other pattern on Plate 63 (63:1). The ribbon bit at the center top is on that same page. This one I graphed up from a photo of an artifact appearing in Lanto Synge's Royal School of Needlework Book of Needlework and Embroidery. It's a curious piece, stitched without background in blue silk. The curious part is the reverse gives clues that it might have been done in something like reverse chain stitch, with the chains on the back, showing a top appearance similar to double running. I'm working it in plain old double running, and have chosen to accent the pattern with a background of half-cross stitch. I'm working the background with verticals and horizontals on the reverse rather than reversibly as true double running because I'm short on the gray thread, and want to economize as much as possible. Better pix on this panel soon, I promise.

Technorati : embroidery counted-thread

As promised, here's the chart for my double running stitch phoenix

Click on the chart thumbnail to see a larger version. Apologies to those with slow connections - it's big.

LATE ADDITION: For those of you who would like a larger, clearer version of the chart, I post this PDF.

Enjoy!

Technorati : embroidery chart

Progress continues to mount on my Do Right sampler. The band at the bottom will be wider than the present stitched area, and the upper part will be flanked by two longer vertical strips. These may be two-toned, possibly with foreground in double running and some sort of background, but I've not decided yet for sure. My thread quantities are very limited, to the point where doing full up long-armed cross stitch is precluded.

Here's what I've got so far. Details of the honeysuckle strip from the V&A handkerchief photo, and of my phoenix are presented for NeedleGal and Maria, respectively. Enjoy!

Stitches used so far are the obvious ones - double running (aka Holbein Stitch, Spanish Stitch), and plain old cross stitch. Nothing fancy at all. The back is neat, but not compulsive, due to the nature of the stitching it's almost reversible, although I've taken no special pains to make it so, and yes - I do practice the stitching heresy of using knots on the back of my non-reversible pieces.

Oh. And I'm cleaning up my graph for the phoenix, translating my pencil scratchings and the as-stitched presentation into something usable by others.

Technorati : embroidery

The latest addition to the Do Right sampler is this strip, which will run across the bottom of the piece.

The few who might be familiar with this type of work will spot it right away as being a Famous Design. The original is in the Victoria and Albert Museum - it's a handkerchief, dated to between 1580-1600. Among embroiderers it's a near iconic artifact, and has been pictured in many books including Digby's Elizabethan Embroidery, and King and Levy's The Victoria and Albert Museum's Textile Collection: Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1750. I've got a graph of the design noodled out from artifact photos in TNCM (Plate 64:1), and there's a simplified version of a very similar pattern in Pesel's Historical Designs for Embroidery, Linen and Cross Stitch, although Pesel cites her source as a sampler dated 1658. (Perhaps there's a point of origin for this design in a now lost pattern book or broadside that both historical stitchers used).

In any case, you can see one whole repeat here, and I've started on the second. In complex double running stitch designs of this type I proceed in one of two ways, both of which can be seen on this piece. The first is the baseline method. I identify a baseline, then if I encounter a branch or digression along that baseline I follow it to completion. If you look at the narrow strip acorn and leaf border at the top of this segment along the left hand side you'll see that I've been working in that manner. The baseline here is very easy to see - it's the single solid line at the base of the acorn/leaf units. I've traveled along it, then up into each sprig as I encountered it, completing the sprig and returning to the baseline. When I work on that strip again I'll start on the baseline and fill in the remaining few double running stitches before continuing on to work more sprigs.

The second method works better on more complex designs. While I could establish a baseline and then fill in every deviation from it on the honeysuckle and vine center motif, if I were to do that and then discover that my stitching was out of alignment, there would be much swearing and stomping around, not to mention endless hours of meticulously picking out previously finished areas. So for these bits, I generally try to rough in major areas with a line of stitching that establishes their boundaries. Then I go back and fill in the detail. You can see this on the second flower. I've done a jog around the outside edge of the flower, confirming its position relative to previously stitched bits. Once I'm satisfied that there are no mistakes in the placement of the flower, I go back and do the more detailed infilling bits. Here's another detail of the working method, from a piece previously featured here:

As I've said before, while I dearly enjoy knitting, it's a vacation from my first love - embroidery.

Technorati : embroidery

Knots are now finished.

It's time for the larger framing strips across the bottom and on the left and right. I'm not sure what I will do. Left and right should balance in density and I'll probably also work them them in the same color, but I haven't decided on the actual designs yet. Ditto for the bottom. Lighter than the knots, perhaps as dense as the ribbon strip at the top. In terms of space, I've got free ground at the bottom that's about 80% as wide as the ribbon strip, and space left and right that's about 50% as wide as that strip. The bottom strip will be the same olive green as the top unit.

I'll start by thumbing through TNCM and see if anything hits me. I'll also look through my earlier hand-drawn booklet. Most of the patterns in there made it into TNCM, but there were several that on further investigation turned out to be too late, or of uncertain provenance. Since provenance doesn't matter on this work, I may use one or more of them.

Or maybe I'll finally graph up the indistinct large band that's just above the red strawberries on Jane Bostocke's sampler from 1598.

It's also time to start contemplating finishing. In all probability I'll back this with another fabric for stability, maybe with some kind of thin interfacing, then do the bars-top-and-bottom-with-a-hanging-string treatment. One small sticky hook should do for actual suspension on the wall. Framing would be too elaborate for dorm use. It can always be remounted down the road.

Technorati : embroidery

To follow up yesterday's post and to answer the question "What do you mean by deconstructing and reassembling the knot motif?" I present this:

Click on the image above to get the pattern JPG at a useful size.

The original motif is presented in my book in negative, as it is in the 16th century originals - with the background blocks filled in and the foreground left plain, but this way works, too. They had to do this by hand-carving a wood block, the fewer flimsy little lines interrupting clear areas, the better. I have the luxury of Visio.

The strip at the top is representative of how the pattern was shown in those originals - a three unit knot with a one unit spacer. But that design is full of possibilities. The center interlaces, end units and terminal twists can be recombined into an infinite array of patterns. I present some that I just doodled up tonight.

So look at those old pattern books, historical or contemporary with a new eye. See how the pattern repeats - where it can be broken apart and recombined. You may end up with something entirely new and pleasing, perfect for your next project.

Technorati : crochet, embroidery, knitting

Invaders having been secured, I add another panel pattern. This time it's a nifty knotwork interlace, also graphed out in TNCM, on plate 31:1.

What exactly it looks like will become clearer as I move along. This block unit pattern appears in several early books. I spotted it in a Ensamplario di Lavori published by Vavassore in 1532, and also in a different modelbook entitled Convivio Delle Belle Donne, also dated between 1530 and 1540. If you look at enough of these early pattern books, you can see all sorts of reprintings, adaptations, regraphings, possible block trading, and very probable plagiarism as the various semi-itinerant publishers interacted.

If you consider that each print block was very laborious to create (these patterns not being amenable to moveable type), the habit of publishers of re-issuing some of their old pages in new collections is easy to understand. Trading is, too. I can imagine two publishers based in different areas, but who traveled around a circuit (or who had agents who did) exchanging blocks so that each would have new material at minimal additional invested effort.

The "borrowing" is also easy to conceptualize. These pattern books were very popular, and the designs in them were highly sought after. It's quicker to copy a design from a competitor's book than it is to come up with a totally new one yourself, especially in the days when pre-printed graph paper was a rarity (some of the pattern books are mostly just that - blank graph paper, with a few pages of pre-done patterns as intro.)

How to identify copying versus trading? You have to get up close and personal with the patterns. As I regraphed them for TNCM I noticed small variants among different versions of the same basic design. Peter Quentel's two-birds panel from 1527, reproduced on this page from blog Feeling Stitchy is well represented, and exists in many very close variants. There are very slight differences among them in the layout of the flowers, the position of the birds' feet. This same pattern persisted in middle European folk embroidery, gaining and losing detail over time as it was copied and recopied, in sort of a multi-generational needlework game of telephone.

This particular knotwork pattern has always been a favorite of mine because of its versatility. You see a three-loop knot at the center of the piece I'm stitching now. The knot itself is easy to deconstruct and reassemble. I'll be using the three-loop center, with a one-loop iteration on either side. Then depending on spacing and relative room, I'll either do another two or three-loop knot followed by a one or more little terminal center loops to finish.

And finally to answer the person who wrote to say that they liked my stitching but found it woefully modern, and thought TNCM was "contaminated" by my including my own designs - I have to respectfully disagree. I took extreme pains to carefully document every design in the book. The ones that were "inspired by" rather than transcribed bear that notation. Original work is always marked and is less than 10% of the book. Most of it is there to fill out pages so that no space would be wasted.

[controversial thought warning for the following]

I do not believe that producing a slavish copy of a period original is the highest form of expression or understanding. Yes, it does demonstrate extreme mastery, perseverance, and skill that deserve praise. But to create a totally new piece that were it compared side by side with its historical siblings, and see that piece as an absolute exemplar of the type - to the point that were it transported back to the point of origin, it would be unquestioningly accepted - that's mastery of the inner form. It's parallel to martial arts practice. Knowing the katas and training forms perfectly is a matter of high skill, but that skill might not equate to being able to abstract the lessons in those forms and apply them in an un-choreographed street fight.

I do not pretend that my doodle samplers and contemporary stitching approach the new-artifact level (with the possible exception of my forever coif). But I do think that the few original designs presented in TNCM do come close, and the reaction some readers that they feel "cheated" proves my point. If those designs were somehow substandard and not tempting, people would not be expressing frustration. Do those looking for meticulous documentation to substantiate and produce a pedigreed work for an SCA Arts and Sciences competition want use my original designs? Some might, from an aesthetic standpoint, but they wouldn't do so because those patterns can't be sourced back to a specific stitch-for-stitch or published historical original. But that's why they're marked as mine.

Technorati : Embroidery

This is going to be a STRANGE sampler, to be sure!

(I do have to pick out and redo the mother ship and invaders on the right side, they're one unit too far from the center block). Not sure what goes underneath the phoenix. Probably something in brick or chocolate cross stitch to maintain balance, then on to fill up the rest of the cloth with various double running patterns. Maybe some more heraldic/mythical beasties in the corners... We'll see.

Technorati : embroidery

Invaders!

I never claimed this was going to be a period piece, or a compendium of solely historical stitching. And what better thing to give a gamrchx than something ornamented with sprites?

In other news, the best season of all is creeping up on New England. The tops of the sugar maples are beginning to go red; the air is crisp and clear; kids are headed back to school; and lobster is reasonably priced. What's not to like?

Technorati : embroidery, stitching

Not much to report here on the knitting end, but I have been stitching. The Do Right sampler for Eldest Daughter continues to grow:

In answer to a question, I'm probably going to use the two stitch styles shown (cross stitch and Spanish Stitch - aka double running, Holbein stitch) and possibly long-armed cross stitch. The jury is still out on the latter because it's dense and heavy compared to these lighter styles, and I don't want to overwhelm the piece with it. No, this isn't all that will be, there's ample blank cloth surrounding this center part that I am going to defile with additional stitching.

The large green ribbon motif and the gray frame around the phoenix can both be found in my book The New Carolingian Modelbook. The ribbon is shown in plate 63:2, adapted from an early Spanish sampler; and the frame is adapted from the strip motif in plate 52:3 (it's original, but inspired by historical motifs). The phoenix is new. I drew it up this week past just for this project. If there's interest, I can post it here, along with another Visio stencil optimized for the production of line unit patterns.

Technorati : embroidery

Knitpals please bear with me, I'm taking an excursion into counted embroidery.

As reported here before, Eldest Daughter has gone off to college. Nagging has gotten considerably harder to do, being parceled out via eMail and texting, so I decided to invest all that correctional energy in a more tangible reminder. I'm doing a stitched piece for her wall. I'm still wrestling with this camera, but you can see the beginnings here:

I'm working on 32 count linen, using discontinued DMC Flower Thread (I've got a stitching stash, too). The mark of the tambour frame is very evident, although I took it off so you could see the words. The astute may note that the alphabets used for the first and second lines are slightly different, with the top line being compressed by one unit. That and the non-standard, non-lockstep alignment of the words (including the g encroaching on the N) were done on purpose, to give the thing a less rigid look.

This piece will be multicolor, but in subdued ashen hues, and aside from the motto, mostly in linear stitching like double running. If you've got a copy of my book The New Carolingian Modelbook, you may recognize the snippet above "Right" as being from Plate 63:2, a meandering repeat I charted from a late 16th/early 17th century Spanish sampler photographed in Drysdale's Art of Blackwork Embroidery.

I'm not sure what I will do to fill the cloth. This like so many other of my embroidery pieces is going to grow through accretion rather than planning, but I will not be constraining myself to historical motifs only. Expect some surprises as I find them.

What will target Elder Daughter think of all this? Probably that she's being nagged in front of the whole Internet...

Technorati : Embroidery, knitting