Embroidery is the overarching name for a ground decorated with an eyed and threaded needle. How that decoration is done, what it turns out looking like, and what the ground is determines which category of embroidery the work is being done in. For instance, both needlepoint and counted-cross stitch are types of embroidery, as are needle lace, white work, and needle tatting.
The type of embroidery that most commonly draws people to doing the stuff is counted-cross stitch. I think it is fair to say that counted-cross stitch is a world-wide phenomenon in the grand tradition of Berlin work, another world-wide phenomenon that swept out of Germany and England in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.
Counted-cross stitch is easy to do, fun to do, fairly inexpensive in its beginning stages, and there are I would guess millions of designs available to the stitcher. Counted cross-stitch to you uninitiated out there is done on fabric that is woven evenly with large spaces between the threads. Patterns are drawn up on grids which enable the embroiderer to stitch one grid at a time on the fabric. The results can be very simplistic or wonderfully complex. depending on the complexity of the gridded or graphed pattern.
As silly as it seems, I find it very difficult to stitch following such a graphed pattern. I am dyslexic and the dyslexia seems to worsen as I gain birthdays. But with the aid of a camera and a computer program, I can make the graphed patterns for counted-cross stitch for other people to do. A friend of mine, July Rose, has stitched some of my counted-cross stitch patterns with beautiful results.
The first of the cross-stitch embroideries shown here is called Pueblo. It was originally a picture I took in Santa Fe. I digitized the raw photo, cropped it, removed some elements that were extraneous to the theme, and then recolored it. I put it though one of my software programs that graph out the results. I think this makes a very handsome cross-stitch, very complex and interesting to the eye and brain.
Blue Pool was taken at a famous spring in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The waters are deep, cold, very clear, so very blue. There are large fish in it, as well as divers in scuba gear.
The last cross stitch shown is Golden Poppies from a photograph I took here at the house one late spring day. It is by far the simplest of the cross-stitches. it took many hours of manipulations to simplify so much and get the colors just as I wanted them. Those of you who are cross-stitchers will see that Golden Poppies is more nearly like commercial patterns available everywhere, while the other two are are not at all in that vein.
Pueblo
designed by SKW and stitched by July Rose
Blue Pool
designed by SKW and stitched by Judy Rose.
Golden Poppies
designed by SKW and stitched by Judy Rose
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