October | 2024 | Lia Pas

I completed my largest embroidery to date—the wandering ghost—in June. The stitched area is 53 x 21 cm (21 x 8.5 inches).

An image of an old engraving of a vagus nerve is embroidered on green cotton. The gut is in a large bamboo embroidery hoop. The embroidery of the main nerve lines is done in blue chain stitch in perlé cotton. The brain and some of the face is stitched in the same thread in backstitch. Details in the face are stitched in single strand floss. A bright red anatomical heart is stitched in red whipped back stitch. Around it a bright golden yellow halo in a vesica piscis shape is stitched in single strand thread. Three sets of ribs have are stitched in bright green/yellow stem stitch. There are some tiny details in different colours along some of the nerves. Burgundy roiling with sparse tiny black French knots are stitched in the gut area. The nerve endings in the diaphragm area are lengthened with one and two strand whipped back stitch. Lia’s initials are stitched in green thread in the bottom right.

Clean up took a lot more time than usual because the chalk pencil I used was especially stubborn to wash out of the cotton and I wanted to wet block instead of iron it which took a bit of figuring out since that’s a new process for me. But it is done! Aside from cleanup I worked on it from June 14, 2023 to June 12, 2024. An entire year.

Read on for more about my process for this piece.

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