The Namárië Tapestry – PDF Pattern

I’ve always been fascinated by the world that J.R.R. Tolkien created when he set out to explore Middle Earth in his Lord of the Rings series. Someone who was deeply knowledgeable of our own ancient world, he developed multiple languages, scripts, nations and histories in which he set his fantastic mythologies. When you read his work, you cannot but be in awe at its realism and the labour that went into creating the depth of the universe he created.

With this design, I wanted to make a pattern that felt it belonged in this ancient world – a world in which the art of the elves had an influence on the designs of men. I used the first lines from Tolkien’s poem Namárië (Galadriel’s lament in Lórien).

I named it The Namárië Tapestry, in honour of historical embroideries that have, in the past, mistakenly been called tapestries (think the Bayeux tapestry, for instance).

This design is 195 crosses wide and 309 crosses high. It has a total of 20498 crosses. It would look fantastic on a lightly mottled dark background with a hand-dyed light floss – but you can pick whichever colour you like! It can be worked on any type of fabric suitable for cross-stitch.

The chart below gives estimates of the size of your finished piece and the amount of floss required to finish this piece. 14, 16 and 18 count aida (or 28, 32 and 36 count) are calculated using 2 pulled strands of floss. Only one pulled strand is calculated for 20-count aida (or 40-count linen) and up.