a contrasting color in the negative spaces. For purposes of this game, pretend those empty areas are filled with ecru thread, cotton pearl #5. Excuse me while I take an arggghhhh-h-h-h moment. I remember what happened now. I started out adapting a different design from the same sourcebook . I was working with #3 and #5 cotton pearls along with a #8 silk pearl. It was my intention to create filled space with dimension as in padded satin stitching. I must have frogged the beginnings half a dozen times. The center of my sampler aida cloth was growing black fuzz, and I realized #3 pearl was not a good choice. At that point I also reached the conclusion that I didn't want to waste any more hand painted silk pearl no matter how great the gray-brown tones wo
rked with the tweedy, ecru background.
rked with the tweedy, ecru background.I went for this Huichol textile pattern because it reminded me of a heavy
cotton woven vest from Central America. My mother and I shared it as part of an apres-ski outfit we wore with a hooded, black wool jersey. I still have it! Several decades later I noticed ponchos and overshirts of similar design were popular. Somewhere betwee n reminiscing and ripping out horizontal straight stitches that didn't work, I must have forgotten all about satin stitch. Like I said, I could still fill in with an ecru thread and morph from straight to satin, but I like the clean look of the design as is and know the ecru would grow black fuzz...
What I liked about this pattern was that it could be broken down , shortened, widened. I started at the top working 3 motifs across, deciding I didn't want to go farther than the center.
Next I worked vertically with the 2 rows of the first motif to establish the bottom margin. Working down the next motif I was tempted several times to stop, make finishing stitches and leave a tapered design. I contemplated working the opposite side of the sampler in reverse,
leaving the middle area for another design, but I worried by the time I fiddled and frogged that center would become a hole.
A similar Huichol form allowed me to vary the straight stitches from vertical to horizontally worked, giving quite a different look. Nothing seemed to work for the remaining space. I gambled on a scrap of silver and black cord. I thought it was heavy enough to compensate for the less
dense side. I couched it down with a pattern of two diagonal stitches, then connected with a opposing single stitch.
I think this is one of my favorite samplers to date. I love the way it presents from any direction. The motifs on take quite a different look from horizontal orientation to vertical. Up and down I see Z's or S's. Turned on its side the multi repeat can
resemble waves; in fact, I almost used fish motifs as fillers at several points in my progress.
Well, even though I'm pleased with my result, I did not do my assignment correctly. By way of penance I shall attempt some satin stitches on plain cloth on another TAST-y project.
