Els Socors – A stitching project from Menorca

My latest stitching project is based on one of the tiling patterns on the floor of a church in Menorca.  It is the Església dels Socors, which is a little Renaissance style church belonging to the Augustinian convent in Ciutadella.  The whole complex is now the Diocesan Museum of Menorca.  Not something I would normally visit, but this one was lovely and full of surprises, including the church.  The floor was covered in beautiful tiles and I took a few photos of the various patterns.  Back home I decided to use these patterns as the basis for a needlepoint project.  Here is the completed work.

 

Though I have used my own colour scheme for the project, I have stuck to the basic design which consists of squares in a series of concentric lines which surround the central motif.  In the church, apart from the central section, the rest is mainly in flat monochrome colours.  To add a bit of interest to a stitching piece I decided to vary the squares by introducing some texture in the form of different stitches, direction of lines and length of thread. However I did keep the simple idea of three shades of one colour for the main squares, though I used green.  The piece is stitched on a 16ct Aida fabric in white.  Most of the threads are Paternayan Persian wool in one strand.  I added a bit of extra colour by using two shades of pinks for some sections.  The centre, which is in bright colours in the church is stitched with three different threads.  For the star shape in the very centre I used one strand of a Caron Watercolour – Iris – and six strands of a Rajmahal ArtSilk thread in Gentle Magenta.  The surrounding parts are stitched with four strands of DMC linen in grey.  Most of the work is stitched with a simple diagonal stitch in various lengths, though some of you may recognise the other stitches used in the piece – cashmere, jacquard, checker, mosaic and cushion stitch.  Below is a photo of the original floor pattern from the church.  Happy stitching!