I never thought of myself as the kind of person who would enjoy Dungeons and Dragons. I joined my friends’ group about two years ago, afraid that they would be more committed to the intricacies of gameplay than I had the attention span for. Even after discovering that they mostly used the rules as guidelines for elaborate goofiness, much more my style, I was still hesitant to commit. I borrowed dice from my friends until the pandemic forced us all to play over zoom. I finally shelled out a few dollars for a set of dice (actually two), and decided that a dice bag would be a good embroidery and beginner sewing* project.
Since D&D is an adventure game wanted the embroidery design to be related to navigation. I had an old pair of dark blue jeans with white polka dots that I wanted to use for some kind of project. These would be the perfect background for a star map. I cut out two circles of the denim, one large for the outside and one small for the inside pockets, and two corresponding circles of some old bedsheets as lining.
I found a website that generates a star map for any date, time, and location that you can think of. I chose my birthday. The printed star map was about 7” in diameter and the circle for my pattern was 8”. I did not want the pattern to be too small, so I drew a 7/8” grid over my print out and made a 1 inch grid on tracing paper. I did my best to translate the stars and constellation lines from the print-out to my tracing paper. I left a 2” diameter circle in the middle blank because I did not want my embroidery to be damaged when I set the bag down.
Once I had my star map translated to tracing paper, I pinned it to the fabric in my embroidery hoop. Transferring designs onto dark fabric can be hard and I have found the way that works best for me is to baste my designs onto the fabric with white thread and take the threads out as I go along. I’ve tried using the white embroidery pencils but since it takes me so long to embroider, they often fade before I get a chance to embroider that part of the design. I marked each star with a little X, embroidering the fabric through the tracing paper. Once that was done I ripped the tracing paper off.
I embroidered the stars in DMC B5200, making tiny satin stitch circles as neatly as I could. I didn’t use French knots because I didn’t want them to snag. Embroidering through denim turned out to be difficult, especially for small designs, since the weave is not the same as the quilting quarters I normally use. It’s nice that the weave gives a little bit of a stretch when you wear jeans, but not necessarily when you are trying to embroider. I reluctantly had to use stabbing method instead of sewing method. I also embroidered over my tiny X’s rather than take them out because I realized I did not pay attention to the order in which I made the X’s and did not want to accidentally pull a thread and lose a star.
For the constellation lines, I used DMC 3865, slightly off-white. I realized that I should have basted in the constellation lines as well. Just like it is difficult to connect the dots when stargazing, it is hard when embroidering on a slightly inaccurate star-scape. Luckily it gets easier the more and more consolation I embroider. I am using a tiny split back stitch for these delicate lines.
The other details of this project include the Moon at 91% waxing, done in multiple shades of white and gray to the best detail level I could approximate. I will be using a chain stitch in the DMC 3078 for the ecliptic, which shows the sun’s path across the sky. For the stars whose colors I could find, I’ll be using the lightest shades of yellow, blue, and red that I could find, DMC 3078, 775, and 948 respectively.
If I somehow went back in time and proposed this project to my past self who had just started playing D&D, she would have said I was crazy to think she would invest that much time in something that she didn’t even take that seriously. But now I know that you don’t necessarily have to take something seriously to enjoy it or invest in it. And it is always worth investing in good times with good friends
-Erica
*There will be another post later on the actual assembly and sewing of the dice bag.
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