Plotting a work area

Plotting out a motif for an embroidery piece tends to be something of an exploration for me. Taking a break from the various peacocks and the lyrical lines of the design here I'm working with geometric shapes to build my initial design-base.

This is based on a detail from the extreme outer border of a 15thC Gurajati textile from the TAPI Collection in Surat, India. The original is much more bulbous and rounded. Having reduced it to these very simple angles, I find that I like it.

At this stage the motif marries well with the geometric motifs found in the 13thC and 15thC embellishments found on the fabric fields of dhotis in the Hindu manuscript illustrations. One of the wonderful things about working this way is that I can estimate the rows of stitches I'll need to work in the outer circles around the central "bindi". While I won't know for certain until I execute it as a sampler, working this way gives me clarity. This emblem will be repeated thrice across the border of a duppion patka (sash) on both ends. Am planning to work this up with one thread of Ivory cotton embroidery floss. Again I will execute this in chain stitch. The motif measures 10 x 10cm and will touch point to point across the middle.

After this will be several workings of the sketch so that I have a template from which to trace this off on to the silk. And yes, my roughs are not pretty, seldom finished works of art which allows me a fair bit of scope to let things develop a bit more organically.