© 1997 by Nene Thomas
...in
counted thread embroidery...
In
1998 or thereabouts, I met a fantasy artist at the Kansas City Renaissance
Festival. I was immediately taken with her art and asked her if she wanted
to be “charted” for counted cross stitch, and I explained what that
was. She said yes and gave me a print as prepayment (which is its own
irony). I went home and promptly began to work on one of her pieces.
However, the software I had at the time and my lack of skill/training to
make a good chart made it nearly impossible.
I must have charted and re-charted that
piece 20 times. I started stitching it 4 or 5 times and finally gave up in
frustration because I could not create a good combination of “fun to
stitch” and quality representation of her artwork. I emailed her and
told her of this brick wall I had run into, but for whatever reason, I
never heard back from her.
I have always felt that I was not as
honorable as I could have been in following up with her and making sure
that she understood where I was with it. All these years, the partially
stitched canvases sat folded in my cabinet, reminding me of my inability
to accomplish this task, and alas, I no longer have the print. This has
always been a blemish on my conscience.
Two years ago, I finally realized a dream
of mine that began with my asking her if she wanted to be charted. I
bought good software and learned how to use it. I learned that I was
supposed to pay the artist for the right to chart the art and have done so
faithfully. I also charted my own designs and am selling them (as you all
know).
Charting previously existing artwork is a
very difficult, time-consuming, and painstaking task which I didn’t
understand in 1998. I grossly underestimated the time and effort it would
take. It isn’t as simple as running the art through the program. It
requires making the chart fun to stitch and keeping the integrity of the
artwork intact. Now that I know better, I spend hundreds of hours refining
a chart before I even begin to stitch and then I (or another skilled
stitcher) spend thousands of hours stitching to further refine (usually
quite drastically) the final work and the chart.
So, with a few things under my belt, I felt
emboldened to tackle this piece of hers again after so many years. I had
kept the graphic file in the expectation I would return to it after I had
learned what I needed to know, and I took an entirely different approach
than I had before.
I hope that Ms. Thomas can forgive me for
not following through on my end of our bargain.
|
©
2008 by Susanne Ohlsson
