I’m still working on the colour-play crazy patchwork piece to go on my jacket, in between working on other things. It’s made a little more progress. First, I did some cross stitches in a turquoise perlé to echo the print, leaving the plainer part of the pattern unstitched, followed by some straight stitches and a few knots in a variegated perlé on the grey / turquiose-y areas of the batik style print.
The circles in the plain brown in the middle didn’t seem quite complete, the gold coloured spiral in reverse chain stitch didn’t look quite finished…..
……so I did a bit more reverse chain stitch, and then some random lazy daisy to fill in the gap.
Then some more fly stitches…….
…….. to cover the brown print.
It’s nearly finished, just a few more areas to work on before I can stitch it on to my jacket.
I’ve also finished off the corded Brussels stitch on the first stumpwork acorn, and started the second one, using the cap colour for the satin stitch.
The last two weeks of the term at “in the stitch zone” were stumpwork acorns, but I didn’t make the second one (good friends from Germany visiting this week). I think the fabric I chose for my background was a piece of a botanical print from my stash. There are subtle leaf shapes if you look carefully. The piece wasn’t quite big enough to fit the 6” hoop, so it is just laid over the backing fabric; I hadn’t got a smaller hoop with me. One day I will be organised!
The first step was to draw and cut out an acorn shape. I skipped the draw stage and cut directly. Sometimes I find that I get a better shape doing this, especially if I haven’t got the thing in front of me to draw.
I didn’t want to use felt for my padding as it may end up on my embellished jacket, and Karen gave me a piece of her flannelette sheet to use. The top one is just using my paper pattern to cut round, the middle one was cut the same way using the pattern, then just trimmed round to make it a bit smaller. The smallest one was cut around the middle one, then trimmed to make it a bit smaller. I cut a bit too much on one side, but it will just give the appearance of shading when it is stitched maybe, or be completely hidden.
The smallest one is stab stitched down first, then the middle one to cover it, and finally the biggest one over the top of both. It gives a slightly rounded effect, making it appear more 3D.
I chose to work in what I think is a fine perlé bought from a sales table a while ago, with no indication of type, brand or colour written on the card (not a problem for little projects). It does make me think that I should label cards, if I do know what they are when I wind them on to bobbins or anything!
I’ve used a single strand of the browner one for the very close satin stitch; in a couple of places I went back and filled in with another stitch or two.
I’ve started the cap with corded Brussels stitch in the warmer rusty brown. The paper pattern shows where the second acorn will go. Another WIP!
debbidipity 