Doors of Durin

Doors of Durin by Stitching Coven — the West-gate of Moria, from The Lord of the Rings.

In Tolkien, the doors are a collaboration: Narvi the Dwarf made them, and Celebrimbor of Hollin drew the designs on them. They’re worked in ithildin — a mithril alloy that is invisible except under starlight and moonlight, which is why the Fellowship stands in front of a blank cliff face until the clouds move. The arch is inscribed in Tengwar with Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno — “The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter” — and Gandalf spends a long, bad evening treating it as a riddle before realising it’s an instruction. The answer is mellon: friend.

The chart lays the gate out inside a circular knotwork border, with the elements the films and the book both lean on:

• The arch and its two flanking pillars, drawn in fine single-line outline rather than filled blocks.
• The Crown of Durin at the top with its ring of small stars.
• The hammer and anvil of Durin’s line in the centre.
• The Star of Fëanor burst below it, marking Celebrimbor’s hand.
• Geometric interlace panels running down both sides, and a flight of steps at the base.

Almost all of it is line work, which is the whole trick of stitching this design: it’s the absence of fill that makes it read as engraving rather than a picture.

Stitched on 32ct Fabrics By Stephanie Abyss Lugana — a dark, cloudy grey-teal — in DMC white and pale blue only. The two-value palette on a near-black ground is doing the ithildin trick directly: the white lines look lit, the blue ones look like they’re fading back into the rock.

A genuinely fast one. Started August 23, 2026 and finished August 29, 2026 — seven days, start to finish.