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Underground > Creation >

Embroidery

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:29 / 05.01.05

A strange compulsion has come upon me--I know not from whence--to embroider somthing. I can't seem to shake it so I'm going to go with it.

When I get the urge to embroider it's usually freehand doodles on whatever fabric happens to be handy, with beads and other bits of random tat thrown in as the fancy takes me. However, I'm keen on the idea of doing something a bit more traditional, like a formal garden scene in needlepoint.

Buuut... the usual cutesy embroidery sites I've found on line only have acres of horrible garish cuteness and whimsy. Cuteness and whimsy do not go with my stuff. I'm looking for something that's not overtly fucked (I have a whole stack o' HR Geiger posters for that), but is eerie, uncanny or otherwise suggestive of impending fuckitude. And pretty, but pretty in a creepy way. Nice, sombre, dismal colours for preference.

(NB: Please refrain from posting that anime tentacle intrusion cushion cover again as I have seen the cushion cover several times now. Thx.)

20:27 / 07.01.05

Have you considered doing something ultra-traditional,like maybe some kind of East-Indian or Asian motif? Not neccessarily eerie, but elegant and definitely not cutsey.

12:00 / 08.01.05

Is it patterns, or ideas for what to do that you're looking for Mordant? Because if you can't find any patterns you like, it's quite easy to make your own -most art shops sell 'cross stitch paper', where you basically colour in little squares to get the pattern you want and then follow it when embroidering. If you're doing something bigger than wee freehand things, it's easier to have something to follow, and (of course) the colouring in of the squares takes much less time than actual embroidery.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:15 / 08.01.05

A motif from another culture sounds like a really interesting project for the future--I'll definately look into that. A bit of research would be in order first, however, and I'd like to do some simple cross stitch thingy just to get my hand back in.

Cross-stich paper: Yeah, I was looking for that yesterday but the shop didn't have any. I have plenty of regular squared paper tho'.

14:29 / 13.01.05

Depending on your taste, there are some nice designs at Ehrman Tapestry: I like the Kaffe Fassett vegetable ones, especially the cauli and the bok choi, and the gargoyle-face one (goths like gargoyles, right? I'm a bit out of touch...). There's also this site for Lowry tapestries. I think both sites will do you either tapestry (wool) or cross-stitch (silk), and they sell kits with printed canvas & all the wool or silk you need.

I have a computer programme which converts .jpegs into cross-stitch designs, but I haven't really got to grips with it yet: I'm going to do so over the next few months and will let you know whether the programme's worth buying (because then if you can scan it, you can cross-stitch it!!)

I just finished a huge tapestry version of a beautiful B&W photomanip of Avon and Blake doing naked cuddling OMG, which has taken me, like, three years - I started it when I quit smoking. I converted the .jpeg into a cross-stitch design myself on Photoshop, but it was really fiddly and annoying and the end result isn't brilliant. I learned a lot about cross-stitch design and execution [and Photoshop] in the process, though.