One of my favourite recent stitch in the dark pieces uses a stitch called Romanian Couching. I saw a piece worked in this stitch in a very inspirational book called Drawn to Stitch by Gwen Hedley. Hedley is looking at the link between drawing and stitching and how the one can be translated into the other.What I like about her process is exactly the ‘rough’ and irregular nature of the pieces she produces and the way she achieves this.

I have already used Romanian couching for a recent piece of work. Here is a detail of the stitching …which while varied and rhythmical is perhaps not what I would call really irregular.

Now here is the ‘stitch in dark’ version… quite a different beast altogether.

I really like how the stitches move and while they have, for the most part, the same structure, I think they are far more ‘lively’ than my other piece.

Now the trick remains to get this type of life into a full blown piece and not simply a sample on a shirt pocket.