The Egg and I

In the classic on design by Owen Jones (1856), THE GRAMMAR OF ORNAMENT, Diaper Pattern is defined as a "series of equidistant (parallel) interlocking lines - vertical, horizontal, and diagonal." By moving these lines and sets of lines around, the variety of pattern possibilities is almost unlimited. Needlepoint canvas, due to its evenweave construction, is ideal for playing around with it - and also, taking great liberties (artistic license) with creating flowers, leaves, and "jewel" settings within the resulting boxes and lozenges. In the early 70's, when I first started playing with this, I stuck to the traditional, inspired by Maggie Lane's use of it in her Oriental pieces - Buddha's Path, and other trellis and fretwork type designs. I used a lot of caning and latticework in my own designing, as well as the "plaids" in the Imari porcelains. Anyway, I decided a few years ago to resurrect this, inspired by the wealth of wonderful fibers and beads and metallics available now for special effects - but when I pulled these things out of a box for use in an upcoming article in Needlepoint Now, they were all Christmas things, which won't do for a magazine article in March! Sooooo - I drew an egg - a kind of springtime looking "cloisonne' enamel" type egg. This is such an easy thing to stitch, as it is counted for symmetry, and marked on the canvas with a Pilot Permanent Pen - then outlined with Kreinik metallic braid. Then comes the fun part - the painting with needle and thread in filling in the color areas. I have used simply DMC floss and Renaissance shimmer (for the jewels), along with Ribbon Floss from YLI for the background. The flowers and leaves are beaded with my little technique to make them look solid. When this one is done, I will dump out my stashes of sparkly stuff and do a different design. The gold and white round piece was an evening bag, with beads on the designs within the lozenges. Outlining was done with Ribbon Floss instead of metallic braid. In addition to these, I have stitched tree ornaments, Kissing balls, mini-stockings, and evening bags, as well as using Diaper Pattern for subtle backgrounds on pillows and other more traditional pieces - great entertainment, and striking results!! but now on to more EGGS!!