Yelling Tree Press

Artist & embroidery designer James Tovey explains:

What’s the inspo behind the Interstellar Comet embroidery kit?

Well, in July 2025, a new ‘comet.. asteroid… object’ was detected, coming in to our solar system by a telescope in Chile.

It was named 3I/ATLAS (and is often referred to as Interstellar Comet 3iAtlas)- :
• ‘3’ as it’s the third interstellar object;
• ‘i’ for interstellar;
• and ATLAS as it was discovered by one of the telescopes in the ATLAS network.

There’s obviously lots of speculation that 3I/ATLAS is an alien spaceship, but we haven’t addressed that in the embroidery design – we’ve just made it into a comet. And we haven’t actually called the embroidery 3I/ATLAS – the embroidery is inspired by 3I/ATLAS.

I’d tried doing an embroidery design for the first interstellar visitor – Oumuamua, but it didn’t lend itself very well to an interesting embroidery. 3I/ATLAS was just relevant though.

We were going to do an embroidery workshop in August (2025), and this interstellar object was big news – international news – and so it made sense to do something that was up to date and exciting – and fun. And some of the people taking part on the workshop are now stitching it (summer 2025).

Find out about the Instellar Comet embroidery kit here

What about the kit palette?

One of the observatories noted a red colour, which they thought was indicative of organic matter, so that’s where the reds come from in the design of the kit. And the Gemini North telescope, in Hawaii, took further images refracting out the jewel colours in the photographs – now reflected in the kit palette.

Tell us about the design?

The shape of the comet, actually came from a different project – to make some props for a life-drawing class I was teaching at Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery. The idea to have the model holding stars sprang from a 15th century manuscript (The Voynich Manuscript) thought to be inspired by Hildegard of Bingen. The manuscripts show figures in medicinal or healing scenes holding stars on strings…

Do you know what your train of thought will lead next?

Cosmic foresight not necessarily needed. I think that’s part of the thing. You get a good idea and make it happen and then see what else comes to mind. So, you don’t worry about trying to pin it down too much. You’ve just got to create it, and then let it live its own life.
For now the wooden star is on the windowsill. It might become a painting next, who knows, maybe a headdress?

Tell us your thoughts about 3I/ATLAS

There must have been loads of things going through the solar system, but we’ve never seen them – the tech hasn’t been there. It’s extraordinary that people are now able to pick up these objects – eg 3I/ATLAS being first spotted at 4.5 astronomical units away from Earth (aka 420 million miles/ 670 million kms).

3I/ATLAS has come from the vast distances of space and time but really we just have no idea of where it’s come from – or where it’s going to go. In that respect, it’s a bit like us, travelling too fast, just here for a short time.

FAQs & notes

• What’s a coma? Material sublimating off the surface, usually from the heat of the Sun, leaving a trail behind it detectable – eg by telescopes.
• What’s the ATLAS network? The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System network of telescopes funded by NASA.
• And which telescope was it that first spotted 3I/ATLAS? The ATLAS telescope at Rio Hurtado (aka El Sauce) observatory in Chile.
• What’s Oumuamua? Oumuamua was the first object to get the ‘I’ designation, as an interstellar object. Comets are designated ‘C’ and asteroids ‘A’ .

Find out about the Instellar Comet embroidery kit here