I'm not back yet, I'm writing this before leaving for vacation. Monday night, the 14th, Homewood Embroiderer's Guild will have their annual dinner meeting to kick off the year. Each summer we are given a challenge to do, during the months we don't meet. This year we were given a trivet frame and the challenge was to stitch something geometric to put into the trivet.I had loads of ideas but finally settled on an idea that had been lurking for years--to change a blackwork pattern's density to shade it from light to dark. I went to the Blackwork Archives and found a pattern I thought would work.
I added a bit more density in the center and then began deleting bits of the pattern as I moved out. I picked one way--there would have been any number of ways to do this. I tried sketching it but found it was tedious so I just made decisions as I stitched. It was really fun to see the design progress and, while I'm not usually a great fan of counted work, I couldn't put this down.
Here's my finished piece for the challenge. After I took this photo, I fitted it into the trivet (the trivet edge is two fabric threads outside of the backstitch line all around. The stains at the bottom are a clear demonstration why one should not eat chocolate while stitching, no matter how tempting. They mostly came out.
One strand of black DMC floss on ancient pink 18 count Aida from my stash. (the fabric is ancient, not the color)
