Monday, June 01, 2009
Geekbroidery progress
Over the weekend I've been able to make some progress on the geekbroidery.
I've had M visiting this weekend, and as well as the normal assorted dressmaking that goes on on such weekends (and the fact that she was mad enough to do a half-marathon on Saturday!) we also managed to work through the entirety of season 2 of The Tudors. Now as I'd already seen this it gave me the perfect opportunity to get on with the geekbroidery.
This is such a logical and ordered embroidery that it clearly required a logical and ordered approach to stitching it. Thus I decided that I would do it colour by colour, prime number by prime number.
The number 2 is Medium Sky Blue, and was the most complex of patterns to do because I had to make sure that the shape encoding was correct. It's done in two strands of Persian wool, my preferred embroidery wool although I do so little crewel and canvaswork that I don't use it anywhere near as often as I'd like. Number 1 is Light Strawberry Red, but it doesn't really count as it's not a prime number.
Number 3 is Medium Fuscia, which clashes beautifully with the blue. It was while I was doing this colour that I realised just how much potential this piece has. I know the shape coding. I can count in threes. This means that once I pick up the colour I don't need to look at the pattern, I can just keep going and know precisely where the next section of the colour must be stitched.
Dark Blue Green represents 5, and by now I'd got into full swing, to the point where it's almost a zen thing - in, out, in, out, repeat forever until you get to the end of the block then move onto the next block.
Looking at those three pictures it's interesting to note the differences in colour depending on the lighting. The darker one gives a much better impression of how bright the colours actually are. This is not going to be an embroidery for blending elegantly into the decor, but I don't care, as it's the complexity and content that really appeals.
I've had M visiting this weekend, and as well as the normal assorted dressmaking that goes on on such weekends (and the fact that she was mad enough to do a half-marathon on Saturday!) we also managed to work through the entirety of season 2 of The Tudors. Now as I'd already seen this it gave me the perfect opportunity to get on with the geekbroidery.
This is such a logical and ordered embroidery that it clearly required a logical and ordered approach to stitching it. Thus I decided that I would do it colour by colour, prime number by prime number.
The number 2 is Medium Sky Blue, and was the most complex of patterns to do because I had to make sure that the shape encoding was correct. It's done in two strands of Persian wool, my preferred embroidery wool although I do so little crewel and canvaswork that I don't use it anywhere near as often as I'd like. Number 1 is Light Strawberry Red, but it doesn't really count as it's not a prime number.
Number 3 is Medium Fuscia, which clashes beautifully with the blue. It was while I was doing this colour that I realised just how much potential this piece has. I know the shape coding. I can count in threes. This means that once I pick up the colour I don't need to look at the pattern, I can just keep going and know precisely where the next section of the colour must be stitched.
Dark Blue Green represents 5, and by now I'd got into full swing, to the point where it's almost a zen thing - in, out, in, out, repeat forever until you get to the end of the block then move onto the next block.
Looking at those three pictures it's interesting to note the differences in colour depending on the lighting. The darker one gives a much better impression of how bright the colours actually are. This is not going to be an embroidery for blending elegantly into the decor, but I don't care, as it's the complexity and content that really appeals.