My Mornings With Medusa

A Friday needlepoint WIPdate

Interior process:

I’m still swirling on what this canvas means to me, but I can tell you that it’s altered my brain chemistry. My mornings with Medusa have been sporadic meditations, as I listen to songs and stories. Or stitch in silence.

These tangible moments have been dopamine hits, in the form of weaving snakes through the warp and weft from silk lamé braids. Forming gilden glamours and sparkly spells with swoops of needle-armed fingers.

Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep, I’ll tiptoe downstairs to read a book or sneak in a few stitches. I’ll throw on an audiobook or listen for the owl’s visits to the equally golden gingko tree outside my window.

This project may be massive, and the sparkly threads may make my head spin at times as ends fray, but slowly and surely, I’m bringing her to life one stitch at a time.

TLDR: I bribe myself to complete tasks with stitching this project, and it’s making me daydream about art (but without visuals because I have aphantasia).

A colored pencil and ink drawing for the concept. I ultimately decided that the hearts were too distracting.

Exterior process:

In addition to my “I want to make her gold” thought process in stitching this design, I wanted to explore a different approach for the background—and I wanted it to be tent stitch. And to be honest, I made it up on the fly.

While I envision framing this piece, my only regret about the sheer size of it (15” x 15”) is that my friend Cat, SwabStitches on IG, made the genius decision to finish it on the back of a chore jacket. Stay tuned.

For the background, I am using a scale pattern I sketched up in FT13 Fyre Werks paired with Midnight by Silk & Ivory to add some tone-on-tone visual detail. The colors are so close that it would be a special, sparkly detail one would only notice when they examine the piece, but subtle enough that it doesn’t take away from the figure. I wanted to implement wool because I felt like the texture would allow Medusa to stand her ground, but the sparkly pattern nods to her serpentine nature.

While I am sharing the pattern above, it will be one of the various elements discussed in my third stitch sampler, with the intent to inspire you to take your projects further with just tent stitches.

So yeah! This is me, rambling about my WIP!

If you are stitching her, too, or any of the other two goddesses, I’d love to see! Please do update me on your progress!

Medusa Thread Pairings:

• Background: Midnight by Silk & Ivory x ~5, FT55 by Fyre Werks or FT13 by Fyre Werks x ~10+

• Darkest Blue: FT5 by Fyre Werks x 2

• White: NP02 by Neons Rays + x 1

• Gold Darkest/Brown: NP53 x 2

• Gold Dark (Optional)/Copper: LM32 x 1

• Gold Midtone 1: LM62 x 2

• Gold Midtone 2: LB175 x 1

• Gold Primary: NP281 x 2

• Gold Light: NP100 x 1

• Gold Lightest: NP10 x 1

• Teal Darkest: TBD x 1

• Teal Dark: NP67 x 1

• Teal Midtone: FT72 by Fyre Werks x 2

• Teal Lightest: FT82 by Fyre Werks x 2

• Green Darkest (Optional): LM56 by Silk Lamé Braid for Needlepoint 10 to 14 ct. x 2

• Green Dark: LB58 by Silk Lamé Braid for Needlepoint 10 to 14 ct. x 3

• Green Midtone: LB198 by Silk Lamé Braid for Needlepoint 10 to 14 ct. x 3

• Optional Gold for Eyes and Earrings: FT15 x 1, FT58 x 1