Together with my husband Geo I was house-sitting in Italy. We looked after a traumatised black dog which did not need more than one walk a day, which we often doubled for her sake. We sat on the couch, only to have her lay down besides me (I avoid couches at all times you must know). She filled us with pleasure and heart-warming moments, and also with time on my hands to come up with a new design, as she wasn’t much in for playing. Inspired by a once seen pattern somewhere on a fence in Budapest, which apparently never left my brain, I quickly made a drawing.
The pattern drawn onto a piece of fabric was taken along on the first crisp spring outing once we were back at our own warm home in Hungary. My fingers just barely warm enough to handle the tiny needle I enjoyed the start and end of each day with the phulkari stitch that I not long ago discovered.
In all honesty I was not enthralled with the stitch and it’s density it brought forth. It was too meagre of a design and soon I stopped working on it. Continuing with more interesting embroidery and knitting projects it sometimes happens these pieces of fabric are forgotten. Until I returned back from a very inspiring cycling trip through Bosnia and Hercegovina, where I’d collected tiny shells to attach to an embroidery project.
When house sitting in Italy I’d collected big shells, realising how cumbersome they’d be to wrap and send out, hoping they would reach the destination each in one piece. These little shells were firmer and already had proven their strength, as I had them with me for some time on the back of the bicycle.
The shells I found in a spot I camped, a place that might be soggy in wet weather, a former shallow lake perhaps. Bosnia and Hercegovina with it’s karts landscape at higher altitudes shows long ago dried up lakes, vast expanses of flat area, swampy valleys between mountain ranges. Being at an altitude around 1000 meter, on a field with active farmers in the late evening, I needed to seek a bit more hiding than having placed my tent in the wide open. Having used the bushes as my bathroom, I knew of only one hiding spot, and there I went.
Some of the shells I collected in a short amount of time had still a life slug in them. Those I set free and the rest came with me.
This little piece of fabric started in the winter and reached the finish in the summer. Either sitting at the patio in front of a sea of flowers or behind a large glass window looking out over our own forest.
As traveling brings forth a new state of mind, I saw two things coming together: the unengaging phulkari stitch and the shells. As nudged by a snail against their new plastic home, I saw what was needed to enhance the design and so started to have this cloth finished. To find the fitting stitch, a detached loop, took me a day of trying all kinds of stitches: the first I tried was the one I finally choose.
