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Saturday, May 19

stitching community

I was very intrigued when I came across Danish artist, Hanne Bang's call for submissions for her project "In a War, Someone has to Die". I think I saw it on Mr Xstitch first, but I've seen several embroidery blogs mentioning it as well. Hanne asks for participants to submit a handkerchief with the project text stitched into it in one's own language. This project strikes a chord with me- its collaborative nature, its use of a personal piece of cloth, not to mention its representation of the human cost of wars- so many of which seem so unnecessary.
Here is my submission in progress:
The handkerchief is a very fine cotton with a drawn-thread border and white-on-white embroidery. I'm not sure if it belonged to my great aunt or great-grandmother, as I have a collection from several greats. Some of the text is in my natural cursive, but the words WAR and DIE were inspired by an alphabet in a Dover monogram book I have. The word SOMEONE will be in a 3rd style which uses posed figures to create the letters. The transfer marker was too bold for it, though, so I'll go back in after the rest is stitched. Since the fabric is so fine I'm trying to be careful with how the back looks as well- no hanging threads, knots, or jumps between letters. Most of it has been stitched in whipped backstitch and satin stitch with a few bullions on the serifs.
My Stitch and Surface students were assigned a "text" project, so this is simultaneously serving as an exemplar. I hope to get it in the mail to Denmark by the end of this week.

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