EMPEROR'S GARDEN

designed by Josephine Payne. Do you remember her? She hosted a series on public television out of the University of Georgia back in the mid 90's. I was very impressed with her style and invested in her books, video, and pamphlets. Her specialty at the time was bargello, but not your everyday bargello.

Emperor's Garden is considered a 4-way pattern and is one of the most involved designs I've seen including the 12-sided center medallion. I must have been better at counting back then because I don't know that I would tackle this project today.

It was done with Persian yarn on 12 mesh bargello canvas (at least that's what they called it back then and I think it's still available today). I remember it was brown and very rough. Two strands of wool were required for adequate coverage. This particular pattern called for using 5 shades of one color family which was restrictive as not many wools have a dark, medium dark, medium, medium light, and light range in many colors. Obviously green was one of the Paternayan wools with the necessary variation.

What is so fascinating to me about bargello is that, in the case of 4-way, your chart shows only one quadrant of the whole pattern which is repeated four times making it much simpler to execute than the finished piece looks.

I finished this into a pillow complete with mustache fringe. I am proud to show it off on my blog as it has loyally adorned a wing chair in the guest bedroom for all these years.