Parterre Progress
Interior design involves balancing places for the eye to rest with things for it to look at, but having that happen at different scales and different distances from the eye means that you can have just as much visual excitement as you want.
Once I put my “hero” stitches – the pinwheels – in the octagonal borders, I needed to find something to surround them. It needed to be much quieter, to allow the heroes to be truly heroic, but at the same time, I wanted something that would be visually interesting if you bothered to look.
This is the first two stages of Palace Stitch, which was one of the stitches I interviewed for the limestone pavement. Heathering the yarns means that even close up you have something to look at, and it helps me eke out my stash of Paternayan, too. It’s too beautiful not to use, but doing a large project is becoming something of an exercise in invention!
The final stage of Palace Stitch involves small squares of diagonal stitches. Again I have heathered yarns, this time using lighter, yellowy greens.
The placement of all my colouring variations isn’t quite exact, but I like it that way. Plants don’t grow identically, and a lot of the charm of knot gardens and parterres lies in the crisp shapes with the subtly varying colours of the plants filling them. I’ve been trying to paint hillsides and forests of late, and I never thought I’d say this, but the canvaswork is easier!
I think this is a success. The slightly lighter centre, the darker edges, and the varying colours of the pinwheels (four different shades of Appletons Crewel Wool held together) all create a varying effect which is properly geometrical and definitely canvaswork while still managing to be vaguely horticultural.
I do like it when a Plan comes together!
I’m sure it is a success, well done.
Success on a plot. It doesn’t overwhelm the pinwheels, while the variegations, give it enough life to stand up to them.
You have achieved the perfect mixture of stitches. My eyes are enjoying every part of the design, the spinning pinwheels, the small squares pointing in the same direction but with various shades of green and the stationery Palace Stitch where my eyes can stop to rest.
Well done, Rachel.
Mixing the thread colours makes this really effective and interesting.
Definitely a success. I love the idea of interviewing stitches (“tell me, where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”); palace stitch is a new one for me. Really effective with that two-colour heathering.
Absolutely – a success!
Yes, a success! You’ve managed to get the pinwheels to stand out but the background is still holding its own and a delight to investigate.