Kneeler tapestry work
I have never tried cross stitch or tapestry before but it felt necessary to learn it for this project because it's one of the crafts that are synonymous with Christian religious spaces. And that's really the visual code I'm looking to recreate and play with.
Through my research in learning about these techniques, I was fortunate enough to connect with some beautiful souls who shared their time and experience. I was really flipping gratefull for these meetings because I realise now that I'd been extremely naive in assuming it would be simple and quick to pick up these skills. Whereas they're actually quite complicated disciplines to get your head around, especially for someone with the numerical version of dyslexia. Practising marking out and stitching was a steep and frustrating learning curve initially but after sticking with it (with much swearing and unpicking) I had a big click and felt really good for pushing through.
After some experimentation, I decided to use tapestry fabric and tapestry wool.
To speed up my making I chose to use a tent stitch rather than a cross stitch.
I printed out the design I had made using open source cross stitch free software. Initially I planned to map out the design on the fabric but I found this confusing and so reverted to the more traditional technique of stitch counting.
I marked out the middle of the piece and started on the first letter: R.
It was really tricky at first, but once I had an anchor to work from my pace picked up. Setting the lettering and the border in symmetry and the right places place will of course be the trickiest part of the design. Although I am certain that stitching the ocean of purple will also have it's challenge.
Now I feel confident in my work, I am finding myself yo-yoing between finding the whole process quite meditative and feeling angry because I am deeply aware that this kind of handwork existed to occupy women; I have become the thing I am talking about and satirising.
Only about 1 billion stitches to go.
