The Experiment

Finally ready to begin sewing, I started with a satin stitch to create the waves in my design. In all of this, do bear in mind that everything I know about needlework I learned through a process of awkward fumbling, trial and error,  and of course, ripping out all my work and starting again. I have previously undertaken (what I consider to be) the dreaded satin stitch already -- I used it on my Regency era gown to create the rolling floral scrollwork on the sleeves. But to transfer that design, I had traced the pattern by stitching through paper, creating a well-defined border over which my perpendicular stitches would lay.

This time, I endeavoured to adhere to the technique depicted in stitch manuals, which all seem to display the needle pushing through the fabric alongside the previous stitch -- sans border.

Image courtesy of Ellen Mauhrer-Stroh.

Suffice it to say that I was displeased with the results. I had tried to use the area covered in the ink as my marker, but the stitches refused to lay in alignment, giving the form a serrated edge, and I was giving myself eyestrain by peering too closely at the fabric in order to strike my mark. Every pass was a struggle of readjusting my needle five, six, seven times before finally pulling the needle through and laying another stitch. On top of that, the amount of void fabric wrinkling was outlandish!

 I finished two waves in this style, and when I had finished, I anguished. 'This looks terrible!' I thought, so I tried to see if its appearance could be improved by laying a row of couching along the edge to cover up my irregularities. The work saw marginal aesthetic gains.

 The top two waves in the right hand corner (note the one that is underlined in a lighter shade of blue) were executed without a running stitch border.

So I reverted to my previous method of laying a foundation of running stitch before executing satin stitch, and saw vast improvements to the work. Not only did it allow me to work at lower light levels and reduce the amount of hard squinting I had to do in order to hit my mark, but it also gave the forms an added height, giving the lines a raised appearance. On top of that, it immensely reduced the amount of void fabric wrinkling and expedited every pass of the needle.

A comparison of the two forms as seen from the back side. Note the greater degree of evenness and regularity for each perpendicular pass of the needle.

Being a perfectionist, I considered destroying the evidence -- ripping out those waves which displeased me, and covering up my mess with new stitches. But I remembered one of the lessons that needlework teaches us, a lesson espoused by my teacher Peter Morin in the indigenous studio arts class I had previously taken with him. In his discussion of indigenous pedagogies, he talked about the way in which we learn from the actions we take in our labours, but in needlework (beadwork, in that particular context) especially, we leave a record of our actions, and so our mistakes become valuable to others. Thus, we come to learn from our own work, as well as those works made by the efforts of another. I kept the stitches, since they are inscribed with a record of their own creation, and as such, these so called "mistakes" become valuable.