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Art Projects: Drawn Thread

Erin Penn

Drawn Threadwork made my May

This month I taught a class on Drawn Threadwork. Related to the class I ended up making a couple of towels as examples, to work beside my students, and to drum up additional interest in the class.

First towel completed (May 19) – 15 hours

I love Drawn Thread embroidery because of its speed; this 17 inch by 30 inch towel took under 15 hours to complete when many of my embroidery projects can take over 100 hours. The four lines of drawn threadwork include Hound’s Tooth, Interlacing (Variation), Zig-Zag, and Interlacing (Basic).

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Second towel completed (May 26) 
The lines are as follows(top to edge of fabric) – Hound’s tooth bottom; Hound’s tooth top; drawn thread 2 lines; drawn thread 4 lines; Double ladder interlace (6 gather for each ladder); drawn thread 4 lines; drawn thread 2 lines; Zig zag; Hound’s tooth top.

All white fabric untouched are 6 lines wide. All gathers are 8-thread gathers unless stated otherwise.

 

And enough of that for a while. Hopefully my students enjoyed the class as much as I did prepping for it.

Flash: Another Round

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature (Language)

“I’ll have sex with the next person that buys everyone a round.” Adelaide loudly announced.

Throughout the crowded bar guys started pooling money together.

One guy, better groomed than most at the bar, held up a few bills. “I got this … Beers for the house.” He passed the bills to the bartender who after checking the denomination nodded and started filling mugs.

Adelaide inhaled deeply and approached the stranger. Some guys tried to make a grab for her, consider her fair play. Others gave her wide berth, as one does crazies. Most were watching the waitresses distribute full trays throughout the establishment.

The man passed one more bill over; she was close enough to see the hundred change hands. “For tips,” he said quietly. The noise level at the college sports bar kept the comment private between the bartender, the man, and her.  

The man was getting more pluses than she thought would be possible. Clean-shaven, but with the longer hair she liked so much. He decisively paid and not only had money for tips, remembered to pay them. The bar was packed for a non-football Monday, so the man shilled out a lot of money to cover the round. Adelaide’s sense of humor gave her a genuine smile for the stranger. After a fashion, she was making more than she made during her entire summer job.

“Are you okay with going to the girls’ bathroom?” she asked, swallowing her pride and fear.

He shrugged broad shoulders inside his beaten leather jacket; for a minute, the man looked familiar. The dim light of the bar, broken by various neon pools, did not let her get a clear look at his face. Adelaide glanced over her shoulder. Beth was standing by the doorway; her Greek letter pink pullover looking decisively out of place in the male dominated establishment.

The man glided over the floor. Several guys offered him high fives and a few stood to slap his shoulder. Most just toasted him with their beer mugs. As she moved deeper in the crowd, she was recognizing more and more guys from the university. Some of them were first year undergrads like her and should not be drinking, but most were not in her beginning classes.

No one groped her as she followed the man. She guessed it was caveman rules; she had been claimed for the moment. He wore faded jeans, not in the present fashion of buying new jeans with artistic wear marks, but he wore jeans that were comfortable with him and offered comfort in return.

He held the door open for her and Adelaide easy passed under his arm. He was well over six foot, and dwarfed her five four frame by a considerable amount. Once inside the two-stall bathroom, the man asked “Are you okay with this?”

“I lost a bet … well, actually more accurately, I took a dare,” she explained.

“You didn’t answer the question,” his brown eyes looked gravely into hers. “So I am guessing you are not okay with this.”

Adelaide started unbuttoning her flannel shirt. “Look, you don’t have to be nice about this. Just pretend I am a silly coed who is drunk.” She dropped her eyes to the tiles. Once the shirt was unbuttoned, she ran her hands down either side of the part. After lingering a second at the bottom of the fabric, she cupped her breasts. While staring over his shoulder, she said, “You paid for this fair and square.”

His hand redirected her chin upwards and centered it until her green eyes were looking into his again. “You don’t seem to be drunk, Adelaide.”

She gasped a second, her hands startling away from her breast to the area between them. The man was close enough her fingertips brushed the leather jacket. “How do you know my name?”

“Sorry. My name is Muin.” His low voice relayed. “I’m Fenrir’s brother.”

Adelaide sagged against a sink and dropped her head into her hands. “Of course, because this situation cannot get any worse.”

“By situation, you mean this pledge hazing you are going through, I really don’t see how it could be any worse.”

“And just how do you know about why I am doing this?”

“Alpha Alpha Sigma has had the truth or dare game as part of their rush for years.” He explained. “My freshman year one of the older girls come up with the Bar Dare. The dare has become legend on campus because since then everyone has chosen to tell the truth rather than take the dare.”

“Except for me.”

“Except for you.”

Laughing at herself, Adelaide sarcastically commented. “Go me.”

“Exactly. Go you.” Miun replied. “Why the Hell are you rushing with these losers?”

(words 790; first published 3/27/2013; republished in new blog format 5/28/2017)

Writing Exercise: Turn a Trope Around

Erin Penn

Image from Story Tropes Bingo Almost Every Genre

Tropes drive the publishing and entertainment industry. We’ve all heard about doing the 15-second elevator spiel and other methods to condense our plots to sell to publishers. The only way to do this is through tropes – such as the famous pitch for Aliens – “Jaws in Space”. As readers, we constantly flip over books for their blurbs to see if we might be interested in the book. Oh, a book about pirates in space with a charming doctor trying to redeem them – looks interesting. We buy based on tropes, we sell based on tropes.

An author cannot write to the trope, not like sit-coms writers can. Tropes are tropes because they are easy and simple to digest, but writing and reading need also to be unique and thought-provoking. An immersion of the brain to take you away, even during a beach read. If an author writes to the trope, they need to twist it and turn it, even flip it on its edge. One of my favorite trope flips is “Resenting the Hero” by fantasy humor writer Moira J. Moore. TV Tropes breaks down many of the tropes we all know and love: the hooker with the heart of gold; fathers can’t change diapers; slap-slap-kiss (anger causes passion); and smart people are experts in all knowledge bases. Sure, many characters start off as tropes, just like we make assumptions about the person across from us because our interaction is limited. We know how a cashier, a waiter, or a police officer should act, but the longer we know them, the simple and easy assumptions based on tropes and prejudice break down.

If you need ideas of what may constitute tropes beyond the quick mentions above – Story Tropes Bingo Almost Every Genre by Jenn Northington (2/17/2015) – gives many good examples.

WRITING EXERCISE: Review you body-of-work and find a character or situation which is a trope. Rewrite or add to the scene to break the trope. For commenting, post a link showing the trope you fixed.

Other Cool Blogs: Bad Redhead Media January 21, 2017

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

All-The-Things

I want Mad Skillz. Not just as an author, but all things publishing.

  1. Writing from first draft to final
  2. Editing from content to proofing
  3. Arting from cover to full-wraps
  4. Digitizing from formatting to upload
  5. Mathing from price points to bills
  6. Marketing from social media to conventions.

Oh, wait, there is more – beta teams, websites, keywords… Rachel Thompson in her guest spot on BadRedhead Media explains “This is Why Authors Shouldn’t Do It All“.

Specialization is a thing, folks. When looking at budgets during self-publishing, temptation rises to #doallthethings. Realize for anything thing you do other than writing mean YOU ARE NOT WRITING. If someone else can do it faster, better, spending money (with your publisher hat on as I describe under my Yog’s Law post last year) is a real option. Especially for other true specialties like cover art and editing.

You may want to juggle all the ideas, but, when it comes down to it, the best marketing is having books for people to come across. This mean writing should be primary in a writer’s career.