#stitchtober2021

November 18, 2021

I first heard of October prompts from Children’s Museum Liz who was participating in an Inktober type drawing challenge. I was intrigued and did some reading about the origin of Inktober the ensuing controversy and the development of other lists. And then I realized there were also Instagram Stitchtober lists and embroidery artists who made 31 different pieces which seemed impossible. It turned out others also had challenges that resulted in one hoop with very small images like pumpkins and ghosts. So I thought maybe I could do that but that I preferred the more openended prompts and when Adam Pritchett created a list of only 13 prompts this year I knew I was in!

When I read through it I immediately thought of Rapunzel and while I realized Rapunzel didn’t work for every prompt I thought other fairy tales would. I realized as I was making a list that I could illustrate six fairy tales so I divided my hoop into six wedges. My list:

Influence – The rampion or rapunzel from Rapunzel

Cursed – The spinning wheel from Sleeping Beauty

Astray- Little Red Riding Hood

Overgrown – Sleeping Beauty again – her castle

Concealed- Rapunzel again – her tower

Lore – Fairy Tales of course. I decided to make a book of Fairy Tales to put in the middle of the hoop

Influence – The Edible Cottage from Hansel and Gretel

Creeping- Handel and Gretel again – the witch

Sorcery- The Evil Queen’s mirror from Snow White

Foresight – The clock from Cinderella

Brewing – Snow White again – the poisoned apple

Crowned – Cinderella again – the glass slipper that ensured she would eventually be crowned

A Dark Power – originally this was just going to be the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood but then I added the Evil Queen to her mirror and some birds (more on those later)

I started by looking for images and adapting them and I transferred some to my fabric with the iron on transfer paper and started stitching and making a lot of changes and additions as I stitched. I wanted to present each day separately and have a final reveal at the end so I came up with the idea of temporary felt frames and since I didn’t like them taking up the whole Instagram post I used PicCollage to combine them with the prompt list. I added a quote from the relevant fairy tale

Adam was a great host. He welcomed me on the first day, liked several of my posts and featured some in his stories.

This was only my third embroidery piece and it was challenging. I pricked my finger more than once and got blood on the fabric which is one of the reasons for the birds. When I was researching Hansel and Gretel for the Influence prompt I found they were influenced even before they found the cottage by a bird who led them there. I considered adding a bird to the roof but didn’t which was lucky because their bird was perfect for covering a blood stain. And I added the birds from the Grimm’s version of Cinderella both to cover a spot and fill in the space which seemed a little empty. I added some other details for the final reveal- extending Rapunzel’s hair and the briars on Sleeping Beauty’s castle and adding some flowers to the Hansel and Gretel panel.