I started this embroidery a little while ago. Just to have a stitchy project to work on whenever I felt like stitching but not have to think about what I am stitching. I have made stitcheries like this before but I have always struggled to find a proper term for it. Random embroidery? Randomwork? I think I have called it both of those things. Slow stitching and stitch improv (almost there!) but none of them felt exactly right.
I think I have found the right word for it now: improv stitching. Because it is improvised. Of the moment. Each new stitching is reacting in some way to what has come before. Kind of like what you do with improv quilting. And indeed improv comedy/theatre.
I try not to shoot my next idea down. Saying “yes, and” instead of “no”. It’s nice to finally have a word for it. Maybe I will do it more because I can now describe it better (to myself)…
Here is what the embroidery looks like now. I have very much enjoyed working on it. It is fun to work on something without a pattern or a plan. And almost without rules. There is only one rule: I have to use up the whole of a length of thread before I cut another one.
Improv embroidery is an excellent project for using up odds and ends of embroidery thread. I do have a bag of such random bits of thread but of course I can’t find it. Instead I grabbed a few almost used up skeins of thread to use. In some of my favourite colours of course. :-)
I shared a video where I am stitching on this, without any talking. Just the quiet pops of the needle going through the fabric.
