During the feral burrowing to exhume some of my long put by stitching supplies, I came upon a few never-finished pieces of embroidery. For fun I share them here:

This piece is a true sampler. It’s a doodle cloth I use to try out some techniques and patterns prior to full implementation on a larger piece. It’s done in black linen thread on a rather coarse piece of not-quite-even weave imitation linen – about 26 tpi – 13 stitches per inch.

All of these are patterns in TNCM. The sharp eyed will recognize the same Dragon/George panel that made it onto my filet crochet door curtain, shown partially completed here:

The original modelbook page is here.

I’m especially fond of the background fill vine and bud pattern, second from the bottom on the left. That’s a very small slice of the one I want to use on my library curtains, which I’m inching up on actually starting, once I find the right linen for the work.

I never intended that this cloth be shown in finished form. It lived in my work bag, pulled out and doodled on when I felt like playing with it.

This one on the other hand did start out as an Actual Project. It was going to be a challah cloth or matzo cover for a couple of pals, intended as a wedding gift back in the days when I had more time than money for gift giving Sadly, the engagement only lasted for about as long as the stitching shown here. I can’t say I’m superstitious, but after my friends’ break-up I never had the energy to finish off the project for another recipient.

This piece is worked in DMC embroidery floss on Hardanger cloth (roughly 22 units per inch). It’s in cross stitch – 22 per inch, inspired by (but not a duplicate of) a Siebmacher modelbook pattern. The edging is the closest to the original, but it’s not exact. The field pattern in the inner ring is my own elaboration. The corners and mitering too are my own invention. Mitering patterns for knitted lace is different in execution but very similar in theory, so doing them isn’t a wild leap into the unknown for me.

This close-up shows the pattern and corner slightly better (a rare un-blurry photo for String):

Three of the edge motifs takes up a bit under two inches, and I finished the edging for one 13 inch long side, but was only about 70% done with the inner loop for that side. I used three colors – black, red and yellow. The small white accents are bits of the ground cloth showing through. The idea was to run the border and the inner motif ring all the way around the square, leaving the center bare, with the intention of stitching something relevant to the couple there – a Hebrew verse, or perhaps the date of their wedding. But it was not to be.

Technorati : counted-thread, embroidery