Week 10 Project 7 Bookmark 2

My black and red sampler has taken on a life of its own, and I had nearly forgotten that the whole point was supposed to be to have a place to try out the original colour schemes of historical patterns that I was modernizing.

I had to buy more of the red thread I am using, and saw narrow linen band in the shop, so I stopped work on the sampler long enough to make a bookmark from one of the patterns I am planning on using there soon. Even on the sampler I am planning to switch the colours - I am trying to keep to twice as much black as red. Since I am doing the alphabets in red, the other bands need to be mostly black. For the bookmark I have not only chosen very different colours, but also changed the way they are distributed.


This pattern is taken from 'Stickmusterschatz' by Irmgard Gierls (Part 2, p. 69). She says that it is taken from clothing on a painting by one of the old German Masters. The first thread is an overdyed floss by Needle Necessities (196). I had some problem deciding which thread to use for the contrast. I settled on Anchor 897. I'm quite happy with the result. I'll try to remember to show you the 'same' band from the sampler once I have stitched it. Originally the large diamonds, their decorations and the baselines near them are red. The centres there, the small diamonds and the swirls off them are black.

I have now designed my own Greek alphabet for the sampler. I found a nice Russian one online, and have given up on the idea of Hindi - There are just way too many letters. Anyway, It's coming along quite nicely. Actually it's getting a bit too big for my scanner already. Below the narrow band that you can barely see part of I have also started the next alphabet: that is a wide band in Assisi work with nice borders either side of the alphabet in negative.