This was a delightful bit of inspiration. I had to stop The Big Damn Art Nouveau Alphabet in mid-design in order to create the Belle Monde Alphabet, then do the sampler from that, then decide on the graphic elements I wanted to add, and figure out how to chart them. I learned a lot about this software I’m using, including ways to manipulate what’s on the screen to make the work a bit easier. I don’t like how it does the page breaks in its PDF rendering, but I can’t quarrel with the tools it gives me to create this stuff.
Why all the bother, you may be asking? Well, hubs and I had decided to rewatch the first season of Penny Dreadful to see if it was as brutal as we remembered it being. The answer was “yes,” it certainly is — but we’re doing much better now, and there were some cool bits, too. When Sir Malcom says this, in the first episode, it made my hair stand on end, and I saw the words in sampler form, in a creepy, ripply kind of alphabet. This was why I stopped my progress at “K” in TBDANA to do Belle Monde, and this was the inevitable result.
Don’t Hesitate, in the Belle Monde Alphabet. Sorry about that gray square — screen previews are kinda limited.
Don’t Hesitate is the first in a series of Penny Dreadful designs I’ve got planned. This is a sampler design, done in 185 x 185 stitches and four colors. The PDF is in 14 pages, and the chart itself is broken up across 12 of them. It’s mostly full cross stitch, but there’s a tiny bit of back stitching in this one for the bitsy spider legs. And, as you can see much better in this sampler, these letters are not all uniform in size or in alignment, and this adds an extra, subtle little ripple in your vision as you read, not unlike some of the better visual effects in the series. I chose ancient Egyptian motifs because they underpin so much of the first season, and you’ll know what the claws and spiders are about if you’ve seen anything about this show at all — anyone whinging about spoilers gets turned over to Libby for education on this, may their gods have mercy upon them — and I chose to design my own rather than risk infringing on anyone else’s trademark. I like to think they hint at that aesthetic, at least.
As with all the designs that need to be model stitched, the price on this “beta” PDF is half what the full list price will be ($10.50), eventually, when/if I ever get caught up on the analog end of this. 😀 And when I finish the model stitch and release the final version, everyone who purchased this early version gets a free copy of the final, with my gratitude.
Now… here’s what else you get for buying in early: individual PDF copies of the Red Scorpion and the Eye of Horus. All 3 for $5.25 until the PDF of Don’t Hesitate is finalized.
Red Scorpion can actually be whatever color you want.
Horus Eye Sees You
If you’re interested in these more than you are the big sampler, let me know. I’ll have them up for .99 cents each when the new cart service goes up.
Ooooookay. Time for me to make myself shut down this side of my brain for a few hours and do something utterly else — like sink into some stitching while I treat myself to a rewatch of Liz Taylor’s Cleopatra.
As always, if you’d like to purchase any of my designs, reach out to me in the comments here, or on fb, or by looking me up via aematson ([at]) metaphorpublications ([dot]) com, without all the bot-busting falderal, in email so we can get ‘er done.
Thanks for reading along — you guys make the work on this stuff a lot of fun to share.
Grimalkin Crossing 