The raw import. Esencia de Alabama exactly as the importer left it, 200 x 200 stitches in 35 colours, published unfinished on purpose so you can watch a pattern being made.

This is the starting point, not the destination. An imported image is not a pattern yet: it carries colours nobody will tell apart on fabric, stitches stranded alone in the middle of a field, and outlines the converter guessed at rather than drew. The dome and its flag, the paddle steamer, the magnolias and the Spanish moss are all here, but the way a photograph is here, not the way a chart is.

From now on the work is subtraction. Colours come down until every thread left has a job. Shapes are redrawn by hand so an edge reads as an edge. Lone stitches go, because each one is a whole needle journey for a single point.

When it is finished it moves to the Puntotek Collection, free to open and to change. That is why this one can be seen but not opened: it is not done yet. Come back and compare.