Geometry Is A Beautiful Thing.

Geometry is a beautiful thing.

This was my mini-relaxation project last night, and a test piece for some quilt designs. Pretty annoyed at how wonky a couple of the lines are, but that was a mix of: canvas distortion due to embroidery hoop when drawing the lines in the first place, and my fabric pen being too erasable. By the time I got around to the last lines the marks were pretty much gone.

I think the next step would be to set up the fabric on a square frame and prick the design instead. Or maybe I should just hand-sew it, instead?

I'm reblogging this here so I don't have to type it out again.

I would like to take this opportunity to assure anyone I owe art to (give away winner - I am an awful person, I am very sorry) that I have not forgotten them nor given up on completing their pieces.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to update more regularly, and be more productive.

Day 76.

This post is dedicated to grrlcookery And darkness-be-my-friend- for asking where I was/if I was okay. I probably wouldn’t be posting this without those precious messages of support, so: with all sincerity, thank you.

It’s been a while, I know. The last however many months have been busy (PhD upgrade - I passed), hard (landlady illegally tried to kick us out of our house, but of course we then had to move anyway - who wants to stay where they’re so obviously not welcome?), and rough (health, money, stress).

I’m really trying to get back on top of things and have some semblance of routine and productivity in my life, but I don’t want to make any promises about being back in full flow for now, because I’ve tried to get back into things before and just crashed myself again.

Here’s hoping I update again tomorrow.

Day 72. I took a few days off because I need to buy more thread and needles, an because of our minor heat wave. I do not function well in heat.

This one will scan (in person) using QRdroid for android phones, but none of the free iPhone apps I had (Qrafter, Scan and QRreader) can read it. This one (R) is done in a composite stitch - French knots pinned in place by split cross stitch (the two strands of each arm of the cross stitch fall either side of the French knot). I couldn't find this stitch in any of my stitch dictionaries, but I'm sure someone must have thought of it before. For now I'm calling it French Cross Stitch, but if anyone knows another name for it, I'd love to know.

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.