Trying out blackwork embroidery

So when I was doing my quilt there was a bit of embroidery involved, which I don't really have much experience in but I really enjoyed it and I've seen a lot of super inspiring work from embroidery artists on the internet.

I mean, how stunning is this work by Chloe Giordano. 

James picked up on this and he got me this book for Christmas. There are a load of great projects but one style that I really liked was the the blackwork, very stylised, geometric patterns usually done with black thread on white linen. 

 The book had a load of different patterns and stitches, and as I didn't have a project in mind but did want to get stuck in I decided to do a sampler-sort-of-thing to test the different patterns. 

I sewed a basic grid pattern onto some white aida fabric - 6 squares by 4 squares - and tried a different stitch in each square. 





I love this sampler - I sort of want to frame it! Blackwork is so tidy and orderly. I really want to figure out a way to use this in another project - I feel like maybe something architectural or abstract? I'm working on it.