So far I've outlined all but two of the leaves, and put borders around the boxes that are the border for the whole thing. There are 16 of them and I'm going to have to come up with 16 fillings.

Shrunk the fabric, ironed, traced the design on, started embroidering. Not perfectly happy with those stems and outlines. I'm still learning. Not unhappy enough to undo them and start over, though. 

I need to draw it on with the blue pen so I can start to embroider the next project. The cloth is cut and shrunk and ironed and ready to go.

This is a proof of concept. If I drew the stitches carefully instead of using cross-hatching to represent them, this would look something like the finished product, with the black background showing through the pulled-thread fillings. To make it, I took the original AutoSketch pattern (previous post), added a layer of cross-hatching and design elements within the figures, made sure all the figures were outlined, and then filled the background with black. Pulled it into Irfanview and turned…

I like the Lynxlace oak leaf pattern. So I wanted to imitate it. My mother's house has oak leaf cast iron porch posts. Here's one:

and here's the drawing from it not done from the photo but freehand looking out the window. The idea here is to make it no more than 12 inches…

An experiment. The lower one looks pretty good - a rose-like motif in over and under stitch in #10 thread on ground worked with #80.

From Moyra McNeill page 59. "Based on reverse wave stitch" she says

Looks good with thick (#10) thread pulled tight for the "pebbly" effect. A waste of time with thin thread, as you can see here at the top.…

All done in #80 tatting cotton. Picture below.

Left top: double whip stitch over 4 threads - right top: double faggot stitch over 4 threads

Next row left side: double whip stitch over 3 threads - right side:faggot stitch over 3 threads

Second from bottom row: left side: whip stitch over 2 threads - right side: 4-sided stitch over 2 threads ground

Bottom row left side: double whip stitch over two threads - right side: double faggot over 2 threads

The nicest…

8-pt text for comparison…

Diagonal raised band with #20 thread, very textured; with #80 thread, way more open; open trellis above that, which I find fiendishly hard to do; and to the top left, drawn diagonal ground in #30.

plan ahead ... should plan ahead ...

Lower panel: Checked Greek cross stitch. Not a success. Right of that: crosses of dots worked on satin stitch. Needs practice. I think I could learn to make it look good. Above Greek cross stitches: something called coil stitch that doesn't look a thing like the illustration in the book.

Middle panel:…

Who says 4-sided stitch has to be square? This is worked over 4 x 6 threads. At top: lined up. Lower: offset by 3 - makes little hexagons of holes. I like it. I'm not sure there might not be a better way to do that, though.

Here's the complete square with (from bottom up) the above…

I bought a frame.

Left top: (sideways) plain wave stitch over 4 threads. Right top: (also sideways) Over 5 threads, making windows. Below: Over 6 threads, making 9-paned windows. At the bottom, trying wrapping the thread around twice. None of these very satisfactory. They would probably look better on a tighter weave cloth. The first one is best, but for that general appearance I like a 3-sided stitch ground.

I am shamelessly copying the conceptual idea of the White Sampler, though I certainly won't be…

This is in the way of an experiment. You can see how the quality improves top to bottom. Where it starts looking normal is where I found the picture of lace filling stitch in the Hardanger section of Lynxlace.

Both stitches (the double fa99ot and the lace filling) are worked with tatting cotton. It would be interesting to see some other kind of holey filling worked the same way, possibly squares edged with satin…

I'm calling this neat because Lorelei said it was, but it would look a lot better stretched on a frame. There are around 25 patterns represented here. Let me see if I can enumerate them in order. I'm going to order a square embroidery frame for working on things like this.

Square 1: Ringed back over 4 threads, 3 rings. Ringed back over 3 threads, two rows. Offset back stitch to take up the space at the…

I got curious and found this. Lordy, lordy! what a mess. But there is a handy chart.

https://fashion-incubator.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Thread_Sizes.htm

I don't like it much. There are many prettier backstitch patterns like ringed back, small ringed back, squares, and Agnes Leach's #37 which I independently worked out. 

This next is hard to count right, and wasn't; and as you can see the blocks should be connected differently…

Two kinds. The corner-to-corner ones and two little V's of the side-to-side ones. Front and back shown. To get the squares the same on the two kinds the first are worked over 4 threads and the second over 6. I can do these readily while looking at the diagrams at Lynxlace but haven't memorized them yet.…

Until I manage to get in there and print out the real pattern I'm learning some new things.

Double faggot stitch with an attempt at lace filling stitch also called dove's eye; reed stitch; upside down festoon stitch worked over 2 threads - which is way too small; below that in the next square down a fancy ringed back stitch none too expertly…