The Kureopatora snake scarf continues. It's longer, but otherwise looks the same. I will probably finish it up tonight and post my how-to thereafter.

In the mean time, here's another of the embroideries that litter my house. This one is another doodle - a sampler in the true sense, done to try out patterns that ended up in my book. It's done in a single strand red linen on a linen ground, at about 15 stitches per inch on linen that's about 30 threads per inch. The long dark band at the bottom was done in long-armed cross stitch. The lion, the knot at upper left, the narrow diagonal band next to it, and the dark band at the left edge were in more standard regular cross stitch. THINK was stitched on the count using chain. The rest of the patterns were worked in double running (aka Spanish Stitch, Holbein Stitch).




The dense rose corner surrounding the lion is original, the rest (except for THINK) all have historical precedent, and are all graphed out in The New Carolingian Modelbook. In general I'm not that fond of this one. Done as a true sampler as it was, placement of the motifs was very haphazard. I stitched whatever I felt like trying out, and if the pattern didn't fit - I didn't care (the leggy grapes are truncated at the bottom edge). I didn't plan anything, and the imbalance of the whole thing reflects that.

THINK ended up hanging in my husband's office for a time. That company he was working for in '89 used the heraldic lion as a logo element, which is why THINK and the lion both ended up on the thing. He's no longer there and has another, better embroidery at work now. THINK along with its obsolete logo has been exiled to the upstairs hallway.