Between chronic pain and familial goings-on, I haven’t had the time or spoons I need for writing. I do have a little something to show off, however: another aromanticised embroidery kit!
(“Aromanticised” is a word, I swear.)
K-Mart’s rainbow-themed embroidery kit all but demands a queer makeover. I mean … rainbow, right? After pondering a wealth of options, I chose the nebularomantic flag because the printed design accommodates a seven stripe flag without my repeating colours or making major modifications.
My satin stitch is improving! I am not good at starting and finishing stitches in the same place, but the odd instances of poking-out stitches don’t much distract from the finished design. The main problem is that unneven maroon-coloured “starburst-style” cluster (a few stitches sewn together) on the left-hand side of the rainbow. When sewing the red-pink stripe, distracted by TV, I pulled a section of my stitches taut against the fabric. This tugged the fabric above that section out of place. Tension is a demanding mistress, but I will learn to respect her!
The kit’s direction for stitching the white/centre stripe circles is, in my opinion, nonsensical. They’re labelled “straight stitch”, but the pattern shows small clusters of satin stitch ringed with back stitch. I ignored it by sewing peaked stars with crossed thread before outlining the circles to cover the printing, but a complete beginner to sewing terminology and stitches must find this instruction utterly perplexing.
My last annoyance isn’t native to the kit: the dollar shop/eBay floss with which I replaced the kit’s floss is so feathery that the dye appears to leach into the cloth. Especially that maroon! While I had (fairly) accurate nebularomantic flag matches for each individual stripe in DMC floss, the colours when placed together looked muddy and dull. I like the vibrancy of my final choices despite their technical inaccuracy, so I must find Sullivans and DMC matches for future nebularo patches. This cheap floss is just not it.
Errors, confusions and questionable thread aside, I think this turned out really cute. A nebularo rainbow? Can’t complain about that!
Aro Worlds 