PLAIDS: Digital Drawing and Embroidery

Several years ago, I began working in Adobe Illustrator, creating compositions with simple stripes and squares: “plaids” that used implied transparency. I worked on a strict grid measured such that each stripe or square was scaled to the grid of the fabric on which I would embroider – 12 stitches = 1”. I superimposed a working grid on the files at 1:1 that allowed me to count each stitch. I enlarged some of my files on a 44” ink-jet printer. These are a few of the many images that I have completed since 2018.

Early on I worked with thread-count embroidery (count the threads in the cloth, take a stitch then repeat ad infinitum).  I returned to this technique this past year. I’ll do more, but they are very time consuming (even if I don’t make counting mistakes and have to pull stitches out and re-do them), something that happens more often than I’d like.