Our current big embroidery project will measure 1.2x2 meters. How crazy is that?? It is the biggest one so far. We started it last August 2020, and expect it to be done sometime during 2022.

It goes under the very descriptive working name "underwater world" and we have had many ups and downs during the work. Our challenges with this project are that we have set rather strict rules in terms of the theme. It is limited to an underwater world, which in it self is limiting the colors and the style. But it also makes it very easy to embroider a lot of figures and animals which makes it look childish.

Another problem that we have noticed is that it is rather easy to fall in the trap of wanting to make it look very beautiful and realistic, which is not our style at all. For example, I can see my own mindset in the beginning of the project where I have started working on a big pink flower (see figures below, upper right corner). Our work style is that we work on a part like that for a while, but then it gets boring and we pick up a new color and work on something else. So in the example with the flower, I started working on the blue background for a while. BUT - here is the difference - instead of the blue thread going into the part where the unfinished flower lays, I have consciously left it blank because it should be pink there. You can see this for yourself in the 3 last figures below, how the blue background is just skipping the flower in the botton leaves.

This is something new! And very interesting. Why did that happen? Why was I afraid of ruining the flower? I don't know yet, we need to discuss it more, but my guess is it has something to do with how people work when we have a set theme, somehow too strict rules invades on creativity and freedome. Ok, that sounded kind of obvious on a intellectual level but it is also interesting to see our creative projects from that perspective.

When we start up a new project, big or small, we always search for a challenge that makes it exciting and make us curios to test. In this case, the challenge is to investigate how it is to work with a theme and what happens with our style.

And is such a great theme to explore, all the contrasting colors and little discrete patterns in the creatues living under water. Shadow, light, water, weed, and an occasional net as a reminder of us humans who live above.

A tip for you! If you want to read more on this project, filter out our blog posts by category, it is tagged with "underwater world". It is very interesting to read about the start up and our inital thought about it, as well as the struggles during the progress.

Take care and enjoy the progress images below! Sofia

9 January 2021

14 May 2021

3 June 2021

14 August 2021