Antipodean social media pen pal and long time needlework/knitting co-conspirator Sarah Bradberry recently posted about a thrift store find – a 1971 vintage book entitled Lettering for Embroidery. It’s available for borrowing at the Internet Archive (free account sign-in is required). It’s an interesting read, although its overall aesthetic now looks 60s-retro rather than cutting edge fresh. Which is to say that it’s back in style.

Her post made me think about some of the unconventional alphabets I’ve drawn upon for my various non-traditional samplers, why I picked them, and how I used them.

To begin, I like letter forms – perhaps an inheritance from my grandfather Mack who owned a printing company. He would point out the often tiny differences among various typefaces and font sizes in printers’ samples, advertising materials, newspapers, and in books, and how those differences contributed to the overall message of the printed piece. While I obviously didn’t follow him into the family business, some of what he showed me must have stuck.

Let’s start with one of the more outrageous. It’s a phrase in an non-Terran language, picked up from my one of my Resident Male’s writing ventures. The book itself isn’t out yet, but I can say that in the text, it is translated as “Life’ll kill you.”

Ringed with my dancing skeletons, and bedizened with sword bearing interlaces to echo the stated meaning, I wanted to use an almost unreadable other-worldly set of letter forms; shapes that themselves danced. I went to my go-to spot for graphed alphabets – the free Patternmaker Charts collection of antique Sajou, Alexandre, and other leaflets. This one is from the Rouyer #248 booklet. I kerned and leaded the rather large letters tightly, to accentuate the flow of the curls across the words. (Kerning is the space between letters, leading is the space between lines of type). In terms of composition, the three words are centered, with no regard for how the letters stack vertically. These letters are also proportionally spaced because they vary so much in width, and cannot be easily worked monospaced (the way an old fashioned fixed-width Courier typewriter prints.)

Here’s another where I tried to fit form to the statement. The full chart for Don’t Panic is free here on String.

Yes, I know in the Hitchhikers’ Guide books the phrase is described as being “in large, friendly letters,” but this was going into my office where I managed frantic people wrestling deadlines under extreme pressure. I thought a jittery sign would be funnier. My favorite source to the rescue, this alphabet is from Sajou #325. It drips nervousness, even though the firm serifs imply regular stability.

Note that as with many of these vintage alphabets, the letters I and W are omitted, in keeping with the paradigm of classical calligraphy. I extrapolated the I, and doodled a matching apostrophe. Again, I kerned tightly, although I’m not fond of the space between the A and the N. I should have tucked them closer together, as I did between the P and the A. But As are problematic. I also chose not to center these words one on top of the other. The offset adds to the perceived unease.

Here are two more (slideshow presentation to save space, click on arrows beside the photo to advance). In these I chose to use the words as horizontal bands of ornament, flush left and breaking words when I ran out of space. I went back and eked out the bands to come up to the right margins. Mostly I did this because I was impatient. I didn’t want to take the time to do a full arrangement of the motto as it would appear before working the rest of the piece. I knew I’d have space to work the full quotation, but just stitched them letter by letter, with no advance planning. Since I had seen historical samplers that did just that, I felt confident beginning flush left and cutting words in the middle as space dictated.

I am not sure where I got the alphabet for the “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards” piece. I stitched it circa 1994/1995, just before I began keeping a blog. Obviously the source followed the additional classical convention of presenting just a V shape to cover both that letter and U. I’m also pretty sure I extrapolated the I. In any case, the thread count on this one is no where near as fine as on the others above. There was less room for larger lettering, and I had to find something small enough to fit (most of) the words in, with minimal truncation.

The Arthur C. Clark quotation uses another alphabet from the Patternmaker collection, this time from Sajou #55. It may even be the project on which I stumbled across that source. Being a two-color piece, I wanted something that combined both, and that had an old-fashioned, formal look without being very stuffy. The red swirls suggested a bit of obfuscation and incantation as they tendril around the more solid letter forms. Again I extrapolated the I (thankfully there are no Ws in the phrase). This alphabet with the exception of the I has a very blocky, chunky and solid appearance in spite of the red whisps. There was no need to play with kerning, and spacing between words was easy and regular. The general look of boxy solidity underscores the sentiment expressed. For the A.C. Clarke attribution, I was lucky to find a tall and narrow alphabet in Sajou #172 to fit remaining space on the final lettering line. I will say that after this piece I lost my appetite for broken words.

At the risk of alienating all, my two coarse language pieces (behind the eyeball fig leaf image, also in slide show) use formal typefaces to express very informal and direct sentiments. If you are easily offended by rude words, skip ahead.

The Covid sentiment, done in a blackletter typeface, uses two alphabets from a German book, available on Patternmaker Charts. One is uppercase, the other lower. The lower case alphabet also supplied the numbers. Again I had to invent a matching letter I. Blackletter family typefaces are reserved for formal documents like diplomas, and newspaper mastheads here in the US. I wanted to play on that gravitas.

Similarly, for the admonition done in green, I wanted to evoke the greeting card world of hearts and gentle sentiment, to contrast the general scolding represented with sweetness and light. I picked one of the flowery alphabets from Patternmaker Chart’s Sajou #160 but leavened it with a smaller yet still uppercase typeface for the rest of the lettering. That classic form serif alphabet is from Grow and McGrail’s Creating Historic Samplers. The R of Remember is from Sajou #1 also on Patternmaker Charts, and the lower case lettering for the rest of that word can also be found in the Grow and McGrail book. I also adapted the floral ornaments from the initial letters for use as fill to surround the lower case one.

Pay Attention to Trifles has the most typefaces I’ve ever used on a single piece. I wanted the word Attention to leap out, Trifles to be the most ornate, and the message to be decoded only on a second glance. And I wanted a vaguely carnival type over the top mix of styles to complement the extremely busy design that is stuffed full of buried “Easter Eggs” as requested by the recipient.

All of these are from the Patternmaker Charts website.

• Pay – Sajou #652
• Attention – Sajou #654
• Even to – Alexandre #143
• Trifles – Sajou # 53 and 203

The dual tone coloration on these was not always noted in the original. Some I tarted up myself. I kerned each line separately, trying to best suit the alphabets being used, squishing ATTENTION a bit made it shout louder. Letting the other lines straggle a bit more made them a bit more lyrical.

While busy, the mad assortment is just over the top enough to gentle the nagging advice of the motto. If I had done the entire thing in the same face as Attention, the statement would have been way to strident. Throw in a bit of whimsey and it becomes an in-joke between the donor and the recipient. The centered text with the balanced motifs left and right is in contrast to the rather chaotic jumble of gears done in inhabited blackwork. There is repeating arrangement of the gears (more or less), but not the strict centering of the lettering. I think that adds to the haphazard playfulness of this piece.

I have done lots of other pieces with mottoes or words on them, but they don’t really showcase different approaches. The last one I’ll cite here is the piece on which I’m currently working. I’m almost done with the penultimate band, and have designed another custom-fit to go below it and end off the work as a whole.

I can’t say for sure where I found the alphabet I modified for use on this one. I found the image in my notes folder, with no attribution other than mid-March 2020 save date. I ended up upscaling from the typeface as charted by using a block of four units for every single unit in the original, and smoothing angles accordingly. Using the squared fill for the shadowing was intended to make the text reminiscent of a brick wall. That the span of the words is larger than the rest of the piece and contributes to that effect is serendipity, not planning. My count was off, and (thankfully) having started in the center, at least the motto protrudes mostly evenly left and right, looking even more monumental than I had planned.

I did kern aggressively to make the motto fit the space, but I should have lost one more unit between the B and Y of by. Still, I think it works. It’s blocky, yet because the letters are represented by outline and shadow, it contrasts nicely with the rest of the piece, overrun as it is with very busy fills.

OK. A conclusion now. Sort of.

If you are designing your own motto bearing piece, there are lots of choices out there that can make a real impact on the design, above and beyond the decorative elements that surround it. If you are unburdened by time/place restrictions (you are not designing a piece in the style of a specific location, school, style, or era), you are free to play. Think of the lettering as another element you can manipulate to underscore the message of your motto, or to convey a mood in which you would like it to be received.

Want to be playfully threatening, like an admonition to keep the kitchen or bathroom clean? How about using a different typeface and font size for each letter, to make it look like a ransom note. Want to convey warm wishes and affection to your extremely sweet and caring (but possibly somewhat humorless) family member? How about one of the ornate flower-bedecked alphabets from around 1900? Have a Goth leaning pal whose heart beats for irony and sarcasm? Use that same flower font in funereal black and purple to express an over the top sentiment.

You can speak words with typeface choice, font size, color, and spacing beyond the actual ones you stitch.