It is an embroidery of a poem written especially for a friend of my BIL's when she was presented with a special award at the Welsh National Eisteddfod. Her name means 'snowdrop' in Welsh, so he's requested a snowdrop border for it.
After much searching in books and online, I finally fell for this Art Nouveau one from this book.
My needlework book collection - well, some of it! |
After choosing a font I liked, I plotted the words of the poem on grid paper. Once I'd finished that, I worked out the centre of the poem (dividing the number of squares the width of the words takes by 2 and ditto with the height of the words) and marked that on the chart.
I photocopied the chart of the border a number of times and played around with them to get the best option for turning corners (IMHO, of course). I also decided which part of the design worked best at the 'centre' so that I could line this up with the centre of the words.
Photocopies of the border used to try out different 'corner' options (with plotted poem) |
Up-scaled border motif with poem |
My bits of plotting, calculations and jottings |
Anyhow, with all of this done (phew, time for a well-deserved cuppa and biscuit I think - for you and me!) it was time to work out how much fabric I needed. Thankfully you can find help with this online like this for example.
I've decided to go with an evenweave fabric as a) I prefer it, b) I think it will suit the style of the border better and c) I think the recipient will like it and it will suit her decor (from what I know of her).
As for the colours, well, for once, that was a little easier to decide on than the rest. Firstly, snowdrops are white and green - easy. And secondly, the lady in question leads a dance group and the group's signature colour is purple. So, the border in white and green and the poem in purple (which thankfully goes quite well with green and white - lucky that!) on a natural linen background (so that the white of the snowdrops shows up nicely).
So, off I go .....
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