Of course I love glitter, but using thread the same colour as the background to oversew the strips is a whole other area to pursue. I like the effect of small segments of colour lined up beside each other against the black.

The glorious straight stitch is my very favourite, with enormous expressive potential in lines that outline shaopes and build into patterns and in groups to infill areas. Previously https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=741 I’ve posted on some of the ways this most basic stitch of all has been used since humans began sewing fabrics together for preactical purposes, and it was invitable that the element of decoration appeared concurrently. It is a very human characteristic to decorate surfaces and objects in our surroundings, and there are others in the animal kingdom that also decorate, chiefly as part of their routine to attract a mate.

In my last post I wrote “The sewing is very calming and satisfying – a perfect project for these turbulent times.” With the rise of the Slow Stitch movement in the last few years, and appearance in the fibre art of Penny Berens, Judy Martin, Christine Mauersberger, Dorothy Caldwell and many more artists, the straight stitch is hugely popular. Of course, hand quilting uses straight stitches, but I have been creatively stitching with them since long before I encountered quiltmaking in the late 80s. These pieces date between 1986 and 2007:

The next image is a collage of details from some more recent works (2004-2016) featuring straight stitch as both quilting and embroidery.