Pride month is July rather than June in Europe.

So I made this super gay rainbow dinosaur who is a powerful magic witch to celebrate!

She is embroidered on glitter galaxy mesh, which is overlaid on rainbow glitter vinyl.

She is quite detailed, and I couldn’t see anything I drew on the galaxy mesh.

So I had this embroideryhack idea.

I put the paper with the sketch for her right in the embroidery hoop, under the mesh, and used a tiny short needle to stitch the outline on. The little needle skids across the surface of the paper and comes back up thru the net easily!

You can see the original sketch above. Once I had a nice outline with my beloved Rico metallic embroidery thread, which behaves so much better than other metallic embroidery thread, I removed the paper. Then I could embroider as usual.

I am loving stitch art on net or mesh for its control and precision, and it is so easy on the hand/wrist.

I talk more about that and the techniques I’m using here and here.

Look at her terrifying teeth!

I don’t know if this kind of symbolist magic art has power in these dark times. I don’t know if I can do anything to help queer people of the world in the places where things are bad or getting worse. But I believe my intent, my love and hope for a better future, were stitched into this mighty gay dinosaur witch. I believe she is strong and fierce. And embroidery feels like a tactile, tender medium for this kind of art spell. I’m thinking about it a lot.

Here are a couple articles on how modern embroidery is operating in the art world that I like.