Today, I’m going to share a free hand embroidery pattern with you while waxing philosophical (actually, just babbling and pondering) about the names we give to visual works of art.
This is a little drawing I’ve been playing with for a while, with the intention of using it as a hand embroidery design.
The design was inspired by a floral repeat on a piece of antique fabric of a somewhat Jacobean flavor. I fiddled with it, sketched it, colored it, fudged it up, and then finally set it aside, thinking, “Some day, some day.”
And hopefully, some day, it will come about that I can work it into an embroidery piece. But in the mean time, I thought I’d share it with you!
I’m really rotten at naming my embroidery projects. Normally, I think of them in the most general terms, and coming up with a clever name never even occurs to me.
I call my projects very non-original things, like The Crewel Rooster, because… well, it’s a rooster. Worked in crewel. What else would I call it?
A Clever Someone might call it something ingenious, like…
Gosh, I don’t know. Nothing’s coming to me, even now. And I’m thinking So Hard!
Hmmmmm…. Rooster. Morning. Noise. Barnyard. Those are the things that come to my mind. Maybe Rise and Shine? But wow, can you say cliché?
So, after I drew this particular design and then vectorized it, I sent it around to my family and asked for some input on a name.
Guess what I discovered? I discovered that the rest of my family is pretty much just as good at naming things as I am!
But one of my nieces chimed in and said I should name the design after her – Juliette – and that’s how I came up with Fair Verona for this design.
With a name like Fair Verona, you’d think the stylized flower would have some Italian flavor to it.
But it doesn’t.
Or maybe hemlock, or some kind of poison, is featured in the foliage?
But it isn’t.
There’s absolutely no reason to call it “Fair Verona,” beyond the connection between my niece’s name and Shakespeare’s play.
Oh, wait! The design is somewhat Jacobean. And if you consider that Shakespeare lived during that era – and composed Romeo and Juliet right in there somewhere – then yes, I think the design’s name makes a little more sense. I’ll keep it.
My question is, how do designers and artists go about naming their works? I often wonder if there’s a formula.
And why don’t visual artists name things the same way composers do? Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor. How easy is that?
Of course, whose piano concerto no. 3 in D minor? How does that name differentiate any piano concerto no. 3 in D minor from any other piano concerto no. 3 in D minor? Didn’t anyone besides Rachmaninoff compose a piano concerto number 3 in D minor?
But if composers do it that way, why can’t I? Why not Embroidery Piece No. 17 in Silk and Gold?
It doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it?
I’m obviously thinking too hard about this. After all, I don’t think Fair Verona is going to go down in the annals of art history, even if it ever does get stitched.
And besides … what’s in a name?
PDF Printable
Here’s the handy-dandy PDF printable. The design prints at 6″ tall, if you choose “no scaling” or print at 100% on your printer. You can enlarge or reduce it to suit your preferences.
Fair Verona – a free hand embroidery pattern (PDF)
Hope you enjoy it!
You can find lots of free hand embroidery patterns available here on Needle ‘n Thread, if you’re looking for more stitching possibilities! Check them out!
