String Graffiti

That's what it looks like to me, anyway. :3

A work in progress. Behold its desaturated, scanner-flattened glory.

Having been inspired anew to try my hand at embroidery, I am working on a needle roll. The plan is to stitch pretty colors all over this lovely piece of black cloth I've got, back it with muslin and a strip of thick velvet, load it with all my runaway needles, and roll the whole thing up with a loop-and-button closure. If it works, you can expect a pattern and a tutorial.

German brick stitch/Gobelin stitch be damned; I quickly got carried away and gave in to the temptation to stitch sideways and crossways and every which ways, hoping to pin down (no pun intended) a few of the more traditional Japanese fill patterns. I've got the 矢羽根 (yabane, arrow-tail pattern) and 十字 (juuji, cross pattern) down fairly well. I'm also experimenting with 七宝 (shippou, cloisonne pattern), but it's messy. Hmm.

I'll chart and post the first two patterns. They're not that hard, actually; you could probably just read them from the image.

A side note: By the numbers, this is 28-threads-per-inch jobelin cloth, stitched with 4 strands of cotton floss (DMC). Three strands will also give coverage without encroaching on bare rows, but it's noticeably thinner.