Stitching and Drawing Mathematics

Stitching and drawing mathematics You can choose either to stitch or to rule/draw the designs. To stitch the designs you will need: • A coaster-sized piece (say 12x12 cm) of hessian or even-weave linen or Aida cloth – any fabric suitable for counted-thread embroidery. (Even cloth with a regular pattern of dots will work.) • Thread in a contrasting colour, of suitable thickness for your fabric • A needle, preferably a tapestry needle (round point) • Scissors To draw the designs you will need: • Graph paper (or dotted grid paper) – the lighter the lines, the better. ½ inch or 1 cm grid. • A pen or a B pencil • A ruler Downloadable grid paper can be found online. Workshop by Katherine Seaton (La Trobe) Hitomezashi sample square (coaster): Sashiko is worked edge-to-edge (not from the centre out), with all stitches in one direction (top-bottom) being worked before all stitches in the perpendicular (left-right) direction. We are working it as a counted thread technique. Preliminaries: Choose how many threads of warp/weft your stitches will be worked over. We suggest stitch length around ¼ inch or between 0.5 and 1 cm. Hitomezashi means “one stitch sashiko”, and sashiko means “little stabs”. The stitches will have the same length on the front and the back of the fabric in this piece. Knot your thread, and use a length that is generous enough that you don’t have to join it too often, but not so long that it tangles. When you need to join it, it is fine to knot it on the reverse of the work to the thread that is coming to an end. Step One (optional): Working about 1 cm or ¼ inch in from the edge of the fabric, make a running stitch (yokogushi) border all around your square of fabric. Your needle should pass through the gaps between the threads of your fabric, be carried over the number of warp/weft threads you have chosen, and then pass to the opposite side of the fabric through the correct gap. (These are your “little stabs”.) Step Two: Choose one of the patterns of running stitches (shown on the next page) as the pattern for your vertical (top-bottom) stitches. When you reach the end of a line of stitches, you will need to make either a horizontal or a diagonal stitch to correctly start the new line of stitches. Stitches are worked on a grid, so that the stitches and gaps in adjacent lines either match up OR the stitches in one line match up with the gaps of the neighbouring line. Work all the vertical lines. The spacing between the lines must be the same as your stitch length. You will work as much of the pattern as fits inside your border – and this will depend on the exact size of your fabric, its thread count and your stitch length, so once you have worked the first line of stitches, you may want to mark on the pattern how much of it fits inside your border. Hint: if you find stitching vertically to be difficult, it is OK to rotate your work and your pattern. The main point here is to only work lines of stitching which run in one direction, and to work all of them. Step Three: Now choose a pattern for your horizontal (left-right) running stitches. You could choose the same pattern as you did for the vertical stitches– but you will see fascinating things emerge if you choose a different one. Let’s generate some variety at this step! This is where you will see the benefit of a round-ended needle, because you will be less likely to split the threads of the vertical stitches as you make your stitches using the same grid of holes. Drawing instructions: Follow all of the steps as for stitching, replacing running stitches with a line of dashes that match exactly to the grid of your paper. That is, rule one section of grid, skip one section of grid, and so on. Workshop by Katherine Seaton (La Trobe) Stitch patterns. (Rotate the page 90° for the horizontal patterns!) Workshop by Katherine Seaton (La Trobe) .

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