I’ve signed up for an embroidery course for this autumn, in addition to the club I attend.

The club is very much a social thing – “turn up if you want and embroider whatever you want, or don’t embroider if that’s what you feel like today”. It’s fun and pleasant, gets me out of the house, meeting new people, embroidering more than I otherwise would. But a challenge it is not.

The course sounds like it will be really interesting. Titled Svart, vitt och en färg – “black, white and one colour” – it will focus on composition and graphical design in embroidery. I was super glad to find a course with such a modern and creative approach to embroidery – so many courses focus either on techniques and stitches, or particular established, traditional embroidery styles.

Today I went shopping for all the required materials listed for the course. It was a lot. The fabrics and threads made up less than half the list; the rest was all papers and paints and pens and brushes and crafts knife and cutting board and so on. Luckily I can borrow much of the basic stuff, like pens and brushes in various sizes, from Ingrid.