Moon rock 1

Last night I made a start on the project I first blogged about ages ago. The project was inspired by the embroidered pebble paperweights on the UK embroidery guild website and by a colour-coded topographical map of the far side of the moon from a document released by JPL (NASA). See my earlier entry for links if you're interested.

The photograph shows the page of my visual journal with a printout of the topographic map and the beginnings of the embroidery. I decided to stitch in some of the major craters in padded satin stitch before beginning the French knots. I used three strands of embroidery cotton for the satin stitch and some of the knots. Other knots are worked in two strands. Mostly I am doing three wraps, but occasionally four or five to vary the sizes of the knots. Oh, and the fabric I'm using is salvaged from the Voice of Reason's almost-new shirt: he left an uncapped pen in the pocket, with dreadful results, but the cotton fabric was too good to consign to the rag bag. (Cherie and Peggy, I told you I'd make good use of it.)
The moon map doesn't look like much yet but I have high hopes for it. It's a little big to be a paperweight (I traced it directly from the map -- it's about 15 cm diameter) but I think it might make a nice padded lid for one of those round trinket boxes. If I really like it when it's finished, I might even frame it!