Four Amazons – PDF Booklet

 This design started as I was researching antique textiles depicting riders. Horses are such elegant creatures, and after having done one other design featuring mainly horses (Swedish Horses) I wanted to do a 2nd one featuring equestrians. I noticed that on all the textiles that I came across, men were riding the horses, and women looked on, rather docile, in the border of the design.

In my pattern I wanted women to hold the reigns, while smaller men stood around them looking on – a little play on the traditional roles being reversed. Around them are scattered various animals and flowers – all very abstract and primitive in style. To me, they are the Amazon women of Greek mythology – in their day feared for their prowess at war. As there is enough war already, perhaps we, in turn, can be inspired by these women to be fierce in our battles: fighting racism, patriarchy, and defending our beautiful planet.

You can choose to stitch this pattern fully or use its varying elements for smaller projects. There’s a lot to stitch on this design, and it should give you a lot of inspiration to start some smaller projects also!

CHART DETAILS

The PDF booklet contains the full chart divided over 16 pages.

This design measures 493 crosses by 283 crosses. Note that you can stitch it lengthwise or widthwise, as the centre motif can be seen from all four sides. Stitched on 32 count linen (or 16 count aida) it would measure approximately 30 7/8” by 17 ¢” (78.5 by 45 cm). Make sure that you have enough fabric on the sides to finish this project, as it is a large design!

The design has a total of 51653 crosses. On average, you can stitch approximately 2000 crosses with 2 pulled strands of DMC on 32 count linen. This means that you will require approximately 26 skeins of DMC to complete this project.

After your purchase, you can download the file as a “Letter” file and as an “A4” file: “Letter” is the paper format used in the Americas, whilst all other areas tend to use A4 paper.