I hope that my recent obsession with the colours of shells does not cause people to sigh with boredom behind their screens. The point is that the challenge has begun, and I can’t stop it. So I intertwined an E from the book A Flower Alphabet and an S from The ABC of Padded Stitch, which are none other than Sajou’s Rouyer 254 alphabet. I slightly enlarged the S so that it would be the same height as the E and intertwined it with the E, trying to follow the rule of intertwining from top to bottom, which I described in the book on satin stitch on page 52. The colours of the flower letter are those of the B on page 31 of Un alfabeto a fiori, which came from the shell sample book ten years ago, lining them up and selecting the lightest shades. I embroidered the little flowers with the sweet regret of memories of times gone by, chasing the images and memories that surfaced with every stitch: after all, my flowered letters have been witnesses to the great events that have unexpectedly followed one another with relentless intensity, on the threshold of my 40th birthday, intertwining my private and professional life and putting my ability to keep everything in balance to the test. I fell several times, but now I am walking along the tightrope like a cat on a ledge (albeit a slightly mangy one).
Returning to my monogram, all that remains now is to decide what colour to make the full stitch letter (filled with knots). I am undecided between ecru and beige 842…