Firstly, to those who have been patiently waiting for a year: thank you. I found it very hard to concentrate for long during lockdown. I could manage a Facebook post, but WordPress felt too much effort.
Anyway, I am back for now. (I did finish the Mexican sampler in my previous post, and I hope to write about that in due course.) And then I virtually stopped stitching, as well as not writing the blog. In the last month or so, I have been making small pieces again. (“When all else fails, make a bookmark” is a motto that has stood me in good stead over the years.) After half a dozen or so bookmarks, I tried out this border pattern, loosely based on one in “Mordvalaisten Pukuja ja Kuoseja” by Alex O Heikel, a book from 1899 that is on Internet Archive. I have mentioned it many times before in this blog. I wanted to try the border in a fine thread as tone-on-tone to bring out the texture of the stitches and the play of light.
The main pattern, in double running, was very hard to get right. But after a lot of unpicking and many rude words, I got there.
Then it was on to the filling stitches. Those went rather faster, once I had found a good way of working. And the result was very pleasing to me. I was overwhelmed by the number of “likes” and comments on Facebook. I am keeping this piece as a sample, but I want to work it again at some point. Below, you will see the chart. Each line of the graph paper is one thread of the fabric.
The variegated cream colour of Gütermann Sulky Cotton 12 in colour 4001 worked beautifully on the cream shade of DMC 28 count Needlework Fabric.
Tortoise Loft - the blog 