Arts – Erin Penn's Second Base

Art: Embroidery – B is for Blackwork

April 2, 2026March 7, 2026 Erin Penn 4 Comments

TIMELINE: 2/17/2026-2/22/2026

I will be teaching a blackwork class for my EGA (Embroiderers Guild of America – egausa.org) local chapter in April (2026); specifically I will be teaching the historic Holbein Stitch which most people know as reversible blackwork. For the class I created two samplers based on the wide range of skillsets within my local chapter. Some haven’t ventured beyond simple cross-stitch and others left the safety of the Aida-cloth shore long ago.

The first sampler is for the newer stitchers, worked on 16 point Aida cloth with two-strands of DMC cotton embroidery thread (color is 310, black). The second sampler is on clothing grade linen fabric worked with one strand of the 12-strand Splendor silk thread. I think the linen count is in the fifties, but not sure. I stitched the edges of the linen with Londonderry Linen thread (100-white) and the edges of the Aida with white thread I had around the house; it may have been cotton, polyester, or a blend.

I stitched the Aida version first over a period of three days, about three to four hours.

2/17/2026 Here is the front and back of the Aida cloth sampler. The lines are (1) explore the running stitch; (2) learn the Holbein stitch (reversable running stitch); (3) branches off a line which return to the line; (4) wiggling the line (with an example of what every other stitch looks like); (5) mirror the look (6) Combining branches and wiggling; (7) the modern sampler name and date; (8) mirror the acorn line to complete the sample leaving a bonus area for whatever the beginner wants to attempt. In this case, a pattern from a 1568 German woodcut has been chosen.

Oh, I guess I should say the history of each line. The three crosses to explore branches off a line was created by myself. The mirrored crosses (lines 4 and 5) are from a 1533 French woodcut. Likewise the acorn line (6) is a 1533 French woodcut. The letters for the modern sampler name and date were created by me.

As this is a teaching sampler, I didn’t attempt to perfect the reversibility of the project. I wanted something that looked doable by someone with cross-stitch background.

2/17-22/2026 Now to do the same thing again, but on linen. I used clothing grade linen and repeated the sampler, but at 40 stitches wide instead of just 20 stitches. This modified the Sampler name and date setup. Again, I didn’t worry about the back as this was a teaching tool. I attended a convention, Fencon, from February 20 to 22 and stitched like mad in during every panel to get this done so I could have it in hand to pump the class at an embroidery retreat on February 28.

Below the (8) the mirror acorn line are all the other available designs I have available as optional for the students. ( 9 ) is just a single line wiggled to create those complicated crosses – 1568 German woodcut; (9) the geometric design is two lines – 1533 French woodcut; (10) is the big advanced student project with four line which MUST match across the linen threads. This requires precise counting of the linen to it pull off. It is based on the Holbein painting “Meyer Madonna.” The original pattern had three vertical repeats, not just two. I charted the design based on the painting. (11) This final one is from a linen sampler used by a tailor to sell their product. It was worked on a 50 thread count ground and embroidered in blue silk. The year around 1345 and likely origin is Egypt. I charted the design based on a picture of the extent embroidery.

A comparison of the width is provided to show the difference cloth can make. The Aida cloth was 16 count. I don’t know what the linen is – 50 threads maybe? Half that thread count because working over two threads. Anyway one is 20 stitches wide and the other is 40 stitches wide.

Finally. I did linen thing with plenty of room leftover should I decide to do other sampler work on linen.

Art: Embroidery – In Memory Of

March 31, 2026March 7, 2026 Erin Penn Leave a comment

TIMELINE: 1/18/2026-3/7/2026 (Hours unknown)

I received two Mill House cross-stitch and beadwork kits from a stash redistribution from a friend who passed. All of us in her group got a little bit from her sister. I’ve never worked with this type of kit before, but the friend adored them so I thought I would try. Beadwork AND embroidery in this manner is a little modern to my tastes and I have never worked with Perforated Paper before. Learning process combined with stitching in the memory of a friend.

1/18/2026 I started poking around with he Mouse Kit was work on first. As you can see thread, PERFORATED PAPER, directions, and beads were provided in the kit. The gray face had a big area to stitch at the speed my mind was willing to work.

2/27/2026 The Mouse embroidery and beadwork are complete. Much of the embroidery was done at FenCon (Friday Feb 20- Sunday Feb 22), including the pink beads on the ear. I experimented with how to attach the beads using three different techniques from beadwork I have done in a historic manner. I used technique two on the pink bead on the ear look different from all the rest; it didn’t result in the look the Mill Hill was after, but I like how it looks like an ear piercing so I kept it.

1/18/2026 Like the Mouse Kit, the snowflake kit came with beads, embroidery floss, two needles, and instructions (the stork scissors are mine). As mentioned, I inherited this kit from a friend who passed. She had started the Snowflake doing one color of two radials for the snowflake. I will be completing her project for her. It is interesting to lay stitches alongside someone in their memory.

I have previously repaired two quilts made by my grandmother who died before I was born. Matching stitches, reaching back through time and memory with projects worked on by other people is an experience.

2/27/2026 Completed the Snowflake while at an embroidery retreat (Feb 27-March 1) with other people who knew the lady. The embroidery was done on Perforated Paper, which I had never worked with before (and likely won’t ever work with again – it constantly caught the thread while I stitched). I sewed the “treasure” bead on the bottom and added the loop as directed to the top. When done I cut out the project as directed by the instructions. – and, yes, cutting a beadwork project on paper is exactly as nerve-wracking as you expect. 3/7/2026 I debated backing it and decided to do another new thing. First time using self-glued felt. Just pull off the packing paper and attached. DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS AFTER CUTTING OUT THE SNOWFLAKE. Oh boy was that a mistake. But what is done is done.

3/7/2026 The mouse finishing was more of a challenge in that the instructions didn’t tell how to finish it off except maybe an magnet on the back. I liked the loop on the Snowflake so I recreated it here with a mix of beads from the two kits as I only had exactly this many extra red beads (20!). Having learned the lesson with the glue-felt, I applied it while the mouse was a square and then cut through both. Much better finish. I should mention, I did a special mix of threads for the tail, breaking from the instructions because the gray by itself was not showing up. Three times I went “off” from the instructions, but I think the end result is worth it.

Embroidery: Christmas Ornaments

December 30, 2025August 6, 2025 Erin Penn Leave a comment

I am clearing out my embroidery stash. This is going to be a LONG-TERM project. The easy start on the UFOs (unfinished objects) and Stash-Babies waiting to be touched is the Christmas ornaments. I am taking pictures nightly as I work on them. I usually have about an hour a night (more like 1 and a quarter hours, because there is always “ONE MORE STITCH”). Non-screen time is important to get to sleep once you lay down, and this gives me an hour of no glowing screens before bedtime.

HO-HO-HO (7/9/2025-7/12/2025) – total time about 5 hours: Starting on 7/9/2025, I break out a kit for “Ho-Ho-Ho” and a Christmas stocking.

On 7/10/2025, I asked myself why am I working on only one kit? I got three sets of this bugger. May as well knock all of them out at the same time so I can take advantage of minor memorization of the pattern. Three kits in process now; 7/11/2025 – Get the final cross-stitch done for the pattern and start working on the outline stitch in black. No, I don’t know what colors these are exactly as the kit provides everything; 7/12/2025 – Get the backstitch complete and all the stupid French knots – one for each of the Ho’s, nine total.

Stockings (7/13/2025-7/17/2025) – total time about 13.5 hours: 7/13/2025 – Time to start the stockings. First off is the white and blue of the top of the stocking. 7/14/2025 Get the little part of the cane sticking out of the top of the stocking. 7/15/2025 – Add the holly sprig (two shades of green) and get the dark red of the stocking providing shading down so I know the shape of the stocking.

7/16/2025 – Meeting night, an hour of sitting and listening and waiting, plus the normal hour gets the stockings green heel and toes complete and most of the stocking done. I still need to put the white lines on the heel and toes, the yellow dots on the stocking, and, of course, the black outline plus the bell with it’s stupid French knot. 7/17/2025 – Another meeting night, this time two hours. Plus final touches when I get home. AND DONE! (Well, there is still putting them into the ornament, but I need to finish all of them first.)

For Santa (7/18/2025-7/20/2025) – total time about 2.5 hours: 7/18/2025 – Next up, a For Santa and Santa Claus pairing. I only have two of these kits. Start working on the milk first. Hardly visible against the Aida cloth until the outline is started.

7/19/2025 – Must put the writing in because I don’t want to risk the long counting to get things in position and have them wrong. Writing out Santa lets me know where the red highlights go and where the cookie starts. 7/20/2025 – Final night of finishing For Santa with the backstitch, and get a slight jump on the next two.

Santa Claus (7/20/2025-7/26/2025) – total time about 6.5 hours: (see 7/20/2025 above) 7/21/2025 – Get Santa’s rosy cheeks done and the bottom fur of his cap. 7/22/2025 – Get the V of his color done, the holly spring on his hat and the gold bell. 7/23/2025 – White on white for Santa’s beard isn’t easy, even with the light blue for shading.

7/24/2025 – The cross stitch is done. Now to start doing the outline. 7/25/2025 – So, I did the bell in the wrong place which I discovered outlineing the first one. I ripped out the bell on the other and redid it (I wasn’t reworking the outlineing – that is a PAIN – so I left the first as-is. I mean, yeah, tearing out cross-stitch is always a pain, but I chose the level of self-infliction of only fixing one of the two.) 7/26/2025 – Backstitch complete and the French knots are worked. All the Christmas Ornaments are done.

In my embroidery stash are other ornaments. A Love Bug, an Umbrella Duck, and two Frogs. May as well continue the clearing of the stash. Only one of each of these, so it should be much faster. Oh, during the first one, I discovered they don’t use embroidery floss (where you normally separate out two parts); these are just straight up single cords. But easier and harder. Not sure I like the feel of this thread.

Love Bug (7/27/2025-7/28/2025) 2.5 hours: First picture to show the one package. Each comes with instructions (on the back of the picture), a pack of threads, a needle, a display holder and a sticky back for presentation. 7/27/2025 – First photo, nearly forgot to take a picture to start!. 7/27/2025 – That is because of burnout. I completed an edit, third down on it and I powered through eight-hours solid for the final day. I am establishing the new normal of one hour embroidery and one hour of reading before bed. Tonight I am NOT up to reading anything, so I do two hours of embroidery getting most of the Love Bug complete. 7/28/2025 – Finishing the writing took hardly any time, onward to the Umbrella Duck!

Umbrella Duck (7/28/2025-7/29/2025) 1.5 hours: (7/28/2025 see above) 7/29/2025 – The Umbrella Duck is quick with virtually no backstitch.

Flower Frog (7/30/2025-8/1/2025) – 3 hours: 7/30/2025 – First photo is a picture of the two kits. The Flower Fog & the My Pad Frog. 7/30/2025 – Flower Frog has a LOT of green cross-stitch to do. 7/31/2025 – The green face is complete, next up is the pink cheeks and the pink petals for the flower.

8/1/2025 – All the rest of the details take hardly any time at all.

My Pad Frog (8/2/2025) – 2 hours: 8/2/2025 – Brain insisted on taking a vacation so two hours on the embroidery that evening and the final decoration is complete.

Assembly (8/3/2025) – 3 to 4 hours: Big breath. Time to do the assembly. This is a big step for me because it involves cutting the material after the embroidery is done. No going back if you screw up the cutting!

First picture is getting everything together (about half an hour getting together and laying it out). – Second picture is matching the frames and the back support to the projects. – Third picture is after two hours of putting on the back adhesives (need to position perfectly), cutting (oh the cutting), and inserting into the frame. Does it look good? Now another deep breath, and then put Elmer’s glue around the edge on the back so they don’t pop out.

Fourth picture, wait hour and flip over! – Fifth picture, ho-ho-ho and stockings are complete, except I seem to have lost one of the frames (in the 30 years) since I bought them. – Sixth picture – For Santa and Santa Claus ornaments complete.

And the traditional decorations – Love Bug, Umbrella Duck, Flower Frog, and My Pad Frog all are done.

Finally, the Cardinal. I finished this piece of embroidery three decades ago, but never put it in the frame. I had never framed anything before at that point and it was so beautiful. The concept of gluing the aida cloth to some random piece of cardboard (unlike the other decorations, this one did not come with a self-adhesive piece), cutting the aida in a circle, the very opposite of how the fabric is made, and then gluing all of that to the frame, and it still has no way to attach to anything!?! The whole thing was beyond me. I am very proud of finally making this complete. Now, I just need to figure out how to hang or display this piece.

Art: Embroidery – Biscornu

October 31, 2025November 24, 2025 Erin Penn Leave a comment

TIMELINE: September 1, 2025 – October 15, 2025

September 1, 2025 – My local MODERN embroidery guild is working on Biscornu for September and October. It’s a strange eight-sided three-dimensional shape made from two flat embroideries. They are usually used as pin cushions but also can be used from weights and decorations. The guild wants them to be worked on Aida or linen and provided four different cross-stitch patterns – of which I liked none. (I don’t really like the project, but it is small, my first time working a guild project with this group, and the finishing technique does look interesting.)

Onward to an internet search! I finally found a biscornu pattern I liked, mostly. I am going to remove the center work because why do embroidery where the buttons are going to cover the embroidery? It might be needed for strengthening of the fabric; we shall see. Materials and equipment used. A “dull” embroidery needle – these are specifically made for working with Aida cloth so you don’t destroy your fingertips. Since I am working in Aida cloth, I will not need embroidery hoops. I found two squares of Aida in my stash about the right size – finished should be about four inches? One of the Aida is ivory and the other white. I found two matching buttons among my button box that I am willing to sacrifice to the stash-clearing project. The threads are leftovers from cross-stitch and canvas-work kits – threads from unknown sources and dye lots, but standard cotton embroidery floss of six threads twisted; I will be using three-threads on the stitches.

The color choices are going to be very random and the top and bottoms will not match. I did like one of the pattern enhancements on the suggested designs, so I will be incorporating that as well, space permitting. The pattern stitches are cross-stitch and running-stitch; the assembly will include backstitch.

9/1-22/2025 (total time spent 9 hours; 9 overall) – 9/1/2025 First picture is the gathering of materials after the internet search and the stash diving to get materials for this learning project. 9/15/2025 Second picture is after three days/nights, total of about four to five hours. Time count is wonky because I have two conventions to attend in two weeks and things blur. 9/22/2025 Third picture is after another three days/nights, and another four to five hours. I’m really enjoying the challenge of choose the right colors with enough leftover thread to finish an area and not run out.

9/22-26/2025 (giving up on time tracking) – 9/22/2025 (picture 1) – A closeup of the nearly complete red-side for the biscornu. I needed to add the running stitch to make the difference between the pink thread and the white Aida cloth pop. 9/26/2025 (pictures 2 and 3) – Another three or four days of work. I think it was four, with a meeting. Anyway, I made certain to take a picture of the completed green side. The small checkerboard is the first of two borders. The borders will be mindless, so I am saving them for meetings. As before, I am using leftover thread from other kits, so the pattern gets rather random. It is the same exact patter for the two, I just am using what thread I have available and mostly matches what I am doing.

10/1/2026 – Checkerboard border (in black) and backstitch borders (in brown) are now complete. Next is assembly and I am waiting on the guild meeting to walk me through the making of the special shape.

10/16/2025 – Meeting happened. Two flat objects have been converted into a three-dimensional object. Below is the top, bottom, and side picture as well as a video of the object. Note no sound to the video.

Carlsbad Caverns

October 30, 2025October 30, 2025 Erin Penn Leave a comment

Back in May, I took a road trip with my mom so she could visit family members. Since she is unable to sit for long periods of time, we broke up some of the longer legs of the drive with visits to museums. I previously covered the TTU Museum in my blog with its quilt, watercolor, and borderland art exhibits. We also swung by the Roswell International Museum, which is mostly a reading experience. Taking pictures of large chunks of texts only works if you are going to turn some of them into stories (yes, I took some photos there too).

To break up the ten-hour trip back (before stops to eat are counted), we took a small side trip to Carlsbad Caverns since it was at the half-way point. (Well, more like 40-60, but better than a full drive in one day, which mom cannot do anymore.) She stayed above ground, visited the exhibit in the air-conditioned visitor center for the park, and watched a movie about the caves. I went below ground.

And I decided to do it the hard way. Yes, they have an elevator for the 750 foot descent and return. But I felt the need to “earn” the right to see the beautiful caves, despite having an arthritic hip. I came prepared with a cane, camera, and jacket (the caves hover at about 52 degrees F). During the ranger indoctrination of the “NO TOUCHIE!!!” speech (things that takes tens of thousands of years to form cannot handle tens of thousands of people touching them every year), the speaker directed the “please don’t go down the 20 degree, over a mile long path, with switchbacks and uneven footing if you have ANY walking issues” to me, sitting on the bench in the instruction area, and the man beside me with a prothesis for a leg. I don’t know if he did the walk or decided the elevator route; the 20 degree incline could be an issue. I hope he did what he needed to do to best enjoy the caves.

The first three pictures describe the descent, shows the opening of the cave system, and the holes just inside the cave opening where the cave sparrows live. The opening walk is covered in bird droppings (as opposed to bat droppings out of at the bat cave entrance).

Seven hundred and fifty feet down is a killer on the calves. My legs were shaking after 0.4 miles – only 0.85 miles to go!!! (And then another 1.25 miles for the Big Cave on “level” “ground”.) Most of the descent is ramps; there is one area of steps. The slippery areas where the water is still dripping and forming stalagmites on the floor, also made gripping the handrails harder. And because of the constant switchbacks, the handrails alternated sides, making using the cane challenging as I constantly changed the hand gripping the cane and the hand on the rail.

It’s impossible to appreciate just how VAST the caverns are and how big the formations. The first formation in the above picture is larger than my house. Thirty or forty feet high and nearly as wide. Created one drip at a time. The second picture is of soda straws and other stalactites structures. Depending on how much minerals there are and how fast the drip dries, the cave formations vary between smooth to popcorn-texture like that captured in the third above photo. There is one scenic-overlook that lets one view nearly half a mile of the Big Room in one shot.

The mountain is hollow, your brain thinks. How can something so infinite be empty and full at the same time. Again there is no way to capture the feeling or the features of the cave. The dim light challenged my camera. These few pictures are the best ones I took and the one on the right here is from my camera-phone, which I took so I could do a quick post on Facebook when I came out of the cave.

Well, that is it for the cave pictures, but I also got a good group of pictures of desert flowers and planets. Spring time in New Mexico is beautiful both under and above ground. I found the Ocotillo especially colorful.

The desert was so green and alive with dozens of different plants.

Finally, the architecture of the park administrative buildings fit in well with the landscape and made me want to grab paints. I am not a landscape painter, but for Carlsbad National Park, I might become so.

Museum Visits