parlstickare

I've been busy with non-medieval things lately that I'm only now allowed to talk about: H and A, two of the founders of my lindy hop group, had a combined birthday party and the secret plan was a wall hanging with quilt-squares that we would personalise. A lot of effort, and I'm glad my only contribution was a single square. Even so, due to interference from dance events and holidays, it turned out I had less than a week to get it done. I wanted to embroider something, but cotton is not great for covered work such as brickstitch or couched work since the threadcount is so high. So instead I tried out a very basic stem stitch outline of a dancing couple (i.e. H and A) filled in with Japanese sashiko type stitches.

The design was actually the tricky bit. I wanted a good outline of preferably a recogniseable lindy hop move. I didn't feel up to drawing from scratch, so I looked for a photograph to trace. But it's a very lucky photographer who'll get a dancing couple in just the perfect position. So I trawled the internet, and finally found two decent pictures to use as a guideline. Part of me wish that I had had more time to work on the design, particularly on body proportion. But I know I can be a very finicky person when it comes to personal things, and other people may not always notice what bugs me.

The party was this afternoon, in a pub by the Thames. We had delicious cakes (intentional plural!), played Aunt Sally, the DJs were playing (not swing for a change), and we all enjoyed ourselves. H and A loved the wall hanging and the other presents.


My contribution


The whole wall hanging. We even got a contribution from N and J in Australia!