This One's P. Mountmellick Stitch. Te Big Stitches Are Rhodes Stitch. In Execution, Mountmellick Stitch

This one's P. mountmellick stitch. Te big stitches are Rhodes stitch. In execution, mountmellick stitch is sort of half way between Dutch knot or Sorbello stitch, and an inverted feather stitch (guess which stitch is next?). And a shot of what the whole thing currently looks like, too.

As you may recall when I posted about it before, Anchor have changed the dye lot for their red 19 colour. It is visibly different, and useless to me.

And it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to find the old one, and I reckon I need at least 12 more skeins.

So, here’s the deal, if you have...

This is the start of the piece for the winner of the giveaway. The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost. I spent a lot of time figuring out the exact lay out of this one. I ended up writing the pattern out four or five times, but I think I've finally figured out how I want to do it, so here we go. I also think I'm going to make quite a lot of mistakes in this one.  I've made it pretty complicated, but hopefully it will be worth it.)

Incidentally, the winner was allibys. 

K, L Q, R K is Dutch knot, L is French knot, Q is sorbello stitch, R is French cross stitch. I really like puzzling out how I'm going to group the different types of stitches within the whole sampler. Sorbello stitch is very similar to Dutch knot (the difference is 45 degrees), and French knot and French cross stitch are also similar. All four are types of knot stitch.

More geometric play. The symmetry isn't perfect, but given the amount of tension points, I'm happy with it. The stitches used here are all really basic - twisted satin, buttonhole, vandyke, lazy daisy, whipped wheel. The complexity comes from how they interact with and tension each other (e.g the vandyke stitch will loop around the cross junction of two button hole stitches, and pull them into a new positions (and then you have to try and get exactly the same tension another 9 times). I don't know if there's an official name for this type of embroidery. I have a lot of stitch dictionaries and collections, and I've never seen anything like this in any of my books. If no one else knows of a pre-existing name for it, I'mma have to invent one. Maybe... Arachne work.

Bristol-based art-academia-community group MakingLearning are producing a series of patchwork poems - each patch contains a word, and is made by a different person. I just did the piecing and the quilting. MakingLearning may be Bristol (uk) based, but for the patchwork poem project we've received patches from lots of different places - not just other places in the UK, but also from other countries in Europe, and other continents. So if you think this is something you'd like to participate in, please don't think distance is a barrier! Get in touch, and we'll post a patch out to you. MakingLearning has a Facebook page, which you should totally check out: https://m.facebook.com/makinglearning