Mary's Pomegranate & Peas Purse

Pomegranate & Peas Purse embroidered & assembled
 by Mary Martin

 I love when stitchers share their renditions of one of my designs.  Recently Mary Martin posted on Facebook that she'd completed my Pom & Peas Purse.  She was kind enough to share her photo's with me to post here.  



In Italo Calvino's novel If On a Winter's Night a Traveler he posits the concept that the story told in a book is a combination of what the writer wrote and the reader read.  Each reader brings a different lifetime of experiences to the book, so no reader finds the same story there.  Calvino even goes so far as to say that the same reader finds a different story there each time he reads the book.

The same goes for embroidery.  Each stitcher puts her / his spin on an embroidery design, making it theirs as well as the designer's.  

Pomegranate & Peas Purse embroidered & assembled
 by Mary Martin

These photos show Mary's finished purse.  The technique is blackwork surface embroidery.  Shading of the motifs is created using Speckling stitch after they've been outlined in Outline or Stem stitch.   The vine is worked in Plaited Braid.  I really like the light, delicate feel of the finished piece created by using a light touch on the shading.   

Great job, Mary - It's beautiful!  Thank you for sharing your work with everyone.

Mary teaches embroidery through the EGA.  She recently received her Teaching Certificate and is working towards a Master Craftsman.