I draw many patterns in my spare time. Here I'll share a few pages from my notes about using short dashes as embroidery-style patterns on pottery.
During Summer 2015 I started a new decorating technique for pottery that results in patterns that look like embroidery. You can see the current outcome over on the page about Stitched and Scorched Series. Early attempts shown here in drawings look mostly like running stitches, which is sewing terminology for the dash-space-dash type of stitch.
THE GENERAL PROCESS. The ceramics version involves making piles and piles of small pieces of clay shaped like dashes. For color, I currently I use a white clay and a black clay. I extrude clay through a tiny hole to get a long strand, about as thick as pasta: if you must know, thinner than spaghetti, thicker than angel hair. These strands get completely fired and broken into dashes. If I'm in the mood I sort them by length. Then when I have a wet piece of clay, I select the right sizes of stitch and push them into the clay surface.
Very calming.
These drawings below show some of my ideas for more complex designs. So far, I've made a few dozen items that use the stitches.
Relatively simple arrangements in two, three, or four stitches.
Square or rectangular panels that are much denser, built up from regular arrangements of individual stitches
These are more intended for borders or narrow bands that might go around a piece horizontally, or drop down from a rim vertically.
The larger sketches are combinations of circular shapes put first, then meandering lines put second. I might have to try using these before the rectangular motifs shown on other pages.
These rather large patterns were drawn when the idea first hit to render embroidery on pottery after seeing a collection of Japanese Sashiko patterns on an embroidery blog.