Tiny, tiny, tiny embroidery

When I was in Adelaide, I visited the Silk Legacy exhibition, featuring beautiful Chinese embroidery by Margaret Lee, and embroidery worked in the Chinese style under the tutelage of Margaret Lee. There were also a number of antique pieces from guild collections around Australia.

One of the pieces I was particularly struck by (there were several!) was an antique embroidery with beading on it. The beads were the size of ant’s eggs. They were tiny – less than 1mm diameter!

I was absolutely transfixed by the embroidery. I stood there and marvelled at it. It was so small, so dainty, so delicate, so beautiful!

And the next thing I thought was, “And people complain about working on 32 count linen!”

I know that I am fortunate to still have good eyesight. I know that I won’t always have it. However, while I do, I will continue to work on fine counts of fabric. In my completely inexpert opinion, I think that if you work on fine counts of linen, your eyes become used to it. It would be interesting to hear from an optometrist or ophthalmologist to know if your eye muscles are just like other muscles and can be trained to see finer and finer detail.