Seven Golden Keys (embroidery + design download)
Do you remember The Magicians?
It was this TV show in the mid 2010s that, like... It was about college-age magicians (duh) going to a supernatural university, learning how to navigate the beguiling and dangerous world of magic. God, I don't know how to sum it up better so you feel how fucking good it was! Like, I never really got into Harry Potter, right? It was ok, but I was worried that something in my soul was broken because I just never felt the transcendent connection to it that literally my entire generation did. After I watched the first episode The Magicians, though, I was thunderstruck with the realization "OOOOHHHH, THIS must be how Harry Potter made everyone else feel!" THE MAGIC. THE HUMOR. THE VERY HUMAN CHARACTERS. The stakes! Magic is fucking dangerous! The references to other classic fantasy stories and real life figures! OooOOoooOOoooo (That's said with a shiver). It's just real good, guys.
Matt and I just started re-watching it since the series ended in 2020 and oh my god I forgot so much so it's basically like watching it for the first time. One thing I did not forget, however, is that in 2019 I spent two months embroidering some fanart it! Matt and I are just starting on season two in our re-watch right now, so I don't actually remember why there's a quest to find the Seven Golden Keys in the third season but it happens and obviously I was captivated enough at the time to embroider them.
First I had to cobble together the handful of blurry reference pictures I could find online and then paaaaainstakingly recreate them using shapes in Photoshop, adjusting for the perspective distortions and pixelated details. No, I was not able to make them perfectly symmetrical and I didn't think it mattered because embroidery tends to get a bit wonky anyway, so who cares? Oh, Erika of 2019. You sweet, summer child.
What I had no way of knowing is that six years later I would offer to share a printable version of my design with a fellow fan on The Magicians' Reddit so that they, too, could make their own embroidery. Which unfortunately means that now all my asymmetrical sins are on full display for anyone who pays attention to that kind of thing. If you promise not to give me any shit, you can download the full size image as an attachment to this post (link at the bottom!) If you make anything with it, please send me photos!!
Back to what I used it for: tracing onto my fabric with a white pencil!
The thing about embroidery is that the fabric can show through between your stitches if they're not dense enough, and I wanted maximum shiny gold for these keys so beforehand I went in and painted the designs with my metallic paint (From the same paint set I used to work on my Louvre jewels! I told you guys I've had it for at least a decade) as a base layer. Then I embroidered with (Shudder) metallic embroidery floss. Uhg. Anyone who's used it know what an absolute pain in the ass this material is.
But dang! Gold thread sure does look good!
So, yeah! That's my The Magicians embroidered fanart from six years ago!
Please download my key design to make your own shit for fun! But please don't use it to mass produce t-shirts for profit or something! Ember and Umber would frown upon such behavior.
Comments (14)
ew, did you use that awful DMC metallic floss that comes in skeins like normal embroidery floss? That stuff is the worst. I'd suggest that next time you try using the newer DMC Diamant metallic threads (lovely Japanese-made threads that come on spools) instead. Or any of a dozen other alternatives that are much easier to work with than the DMC metallic floss. (I can make a list of not-so-annoying metallic threads if anyone's interested.)
Oh interesting! I don't remember the specific floss I used, but it probably was DMC. I've tried a couple different ones and they've all sucked, so yes, please, share your recommendations!
So pretty!
Thank you!
It looks amazing! Question - how did you use it to trace the design in white pencil? Did you cut it out like a stencil, or something that I’m just missing? That’s been my biggest problem with embroidering on dark fabric - how to transfer the design?
It IS way harder to trace onto darker backgrounds, which is why my white lines are so much messier/sketchier than they normally would be :-/ What I did here was have the design open on my laptop and then put my fabric (pulled taut in my hoop) straight onto my screen, so the light of the screen served as a lightbox. I probably turned the lights off in the room, to create a more obvious contrast for the design to show through from the screen through the fabric. Another method you can try would be white/yellow transfer paper. You’d make you fabric taut, tape a sheet of transfer paper to it, then tape a printout of your design on top of it. Then you’d trace over the printed image (maybe using another colored pen, so you can see which parts you’ve already traced), pressing down SUPER HARD, which forces the transfer paper to- as the name implies- transfer the white/yellow pigment onto your fabric. I think I’ve only ever used transfer paper on other paper products before, not fabric, so I don’t know how well this would actually work /:)
I very much liked the books, but couldn't really get into the show. The differences annoyed me enough that it took me out of the mood.
Totally understandable! I saw the show first while it was airing and I couldn't wait for the next episodes to come out so I picked up the books-- which I also loved! I don't mind them diverging from each other, I take them as two separate entities, both of which I enjoy.
I loved that show! I just rewatched it recently. Awesome embroidery tribute.
Thank you!
Oh this just wonderful!! Magicians is such a great show, we even quoted it in our wedding vows. Very tempted to embroider this now...
OMG what quotes did you use??
Oooh that looks so fancy shmancy! The Magicians isn't one I'm familiar with but I'm definitely gonna check it out now.
Thank you! And report back how you find the show :)