This is the title of the summer term project at “In the stitch zone” with Alex Hall at Scunthorpe library on Monday afternoons. I got off to a slow start as I was trying to finish off various other projects, and have hardly worked on it between sessions.

Alex had a working sketch that we could use or not. It’s a raised embroidery project. The idea was that we would work on a different stitch or two each week, some new to all or nearly all of us, some familiar with the hope of changing something, thread or extending it in some way.

The first thing was to find a background fabric. I was looking at the last minute as usual and found this very fine synthetic(?) that I think had a paper bag ironed on to the plain white fabric several years ago. The zig-zag on the left side is a give away. Several Seata members have said they have a piece, we think it was a printing workshop of some sort, and this was just one of the techniques we were shown. Nobody was sure who we did it with. Any suggestions?

I’ve put a very fine pale blue cotton or poly/cotton underneath, and stapled it to a rectangular frame now. In the first few weeks, I either worked it in my hand or in a hoop.

The first week we did padded Satin stitch, a rough sketch to get them to fit together……

…….before cutting them out in felt. They each have three layers, each layer getting bigger.

The smallest layer is stab stitched down first, then covered with the middle sized piece and the biggest last. I worked the middle rock first, so that I could ease the side ones to fit up close. I didn’t get as far as the satin stitch.

But I wanted to keep up to date with each stitch in class, so did the couching over the string padding the second week, couching the string down first.

The couching over it was completely new to all of us, and the instructions in the books didn’t mention the need for short rows as you go round the curves. I used 6 strands of stranded cotton, couched down close on each side of the string, going down over it, and coming back up next to it (i.e., working from one side to the other). It takes a bit of getting used to, as you have two needles on the go at the same time. The thicker thread only goes through the fabric at each end, and the couching thread on either side of the string.

By the end of the session I’d done three sections. I’ll come back to the curves later!

Have a look at Alex’s here.