Admittedly, it has been a very long while since I mentioned Stitch Club, brought together by TextileArtist.org. But, as I mentioned, I do have hope that 2022 will see me exploring art much more fully, and completing Richard McVetis‘s workshop is proof of concept, for now. I stalled on it because life got in the way, but I had already began it, so once I put my mind to it, I was ready to see it through to completion.

The idea behind the workshop was to take an image and pull out the geometric shapes, then to add mark making. This really just journals the time a stitcher takes to stitch. You might recall that Richard ran one of the free workshops long ago that I posted here.

I went beyond his suggestion, adding beads and whatnot to try to capture, albeit abstractly, the concept of diodes and tiny fuses and such found on a server motherboard. Here is the original image I worked from, a Supermicro X11SPA-T mainboard that Boy found exciting. My original plan was to do more “capturing” but since this type of art is not my thing, I got bored early on and ended early. Boy didn’t mind, he always appreciates these more obscure types of art.

I took that image and printed it out as large as would fit on a piece of paper. Then, I traced the large areas onto wax paper, so I could cut each fabric base accordingly. That was where I had ended in 2020 (wow, I cannot believe it was that long ago!).

I attached them to a sheet of black felt with tacking stitches and secured the edges with blanket stitches. I added some beads and sequins, and connected them with thread to give the impression of a circuit board.

I also had a few random odd bits laying around that I decided to stick onto it as well: a small square from a practice run on the 3D printer at work, a nut, sandpaper cut into shapes, some old bracelet clasps, a little foot you’d add to the bottom of a pot to protect a table, and a U-shaped piece of metal that I honestly have no idea where it came from. A few straight stitches here and there or seed stitching for effect, satiny ribbon binding, and voila: an abstract mainboard.

I don’t love this thing, but I am glad I finished it off because Boy does. And now, I can move on to the workshops I have been eagerly awaiting for years now, and get back into a rhythm of stitching!