My sketch for this project had rough, thick lines for the oval shapes, and I wanted to recreate those in embroidery. Paper string, maybe, or a thin ribbon, couched. That’s where I paused at the last embroidery club meeting.

In the intervening two weeks, I had completely forgotten this plan, and was only reminded of it when I took out and unfolded the fabric. I did not remember it at all when packing my backpack this morning. Grabbed the embroidery project bag and that was that. No paper string.

Not willing to compromise with my vision, and also not interested in making up some random time-filler task for today, I improvised. Went on a material hunt through the community centre. Found a crumpled-up paper bag. Cut off a thin strip, coloured it mostly-black with an ordinary pen, and twisted it into my own black paper string. Not as durable as the store-bought stuff, but it doesn’t need to hold up to anything, so it’s all good.