The Wessex stitchery piece has been attached to my jacket, on the back near the bottom on the right hand side. With it been stitched on Aida and knowing how badly it can fray, I went round the edges with a watered-down solution of PVA, before mitreing the corners and folding in the edges up to the stitching line. I butted it up close to the seam, stitching it on with a Sylko thread the same colour as the Aida, coming up in a hole and going down a tiny amount away, so that the stitches get lost in the fabric. I think it’s straight, although it doesn’t look it on the photo with the way it’s hanging on my tailor’s dummy.

A close-up photo. The colours at the bottom of the piece echo the feather stitch down the sleeve.

Now for the other sleeve: for quite a while I have been thinking of using the leaves that I did for the “filling stitch” project at “In the Stitch Zone”, way back in November 2023. Other things took over, so it only had the one blog post. The split stitch had circles and ovals done on the second side….

…. and then Lattice filling stitch, which was easier to get straight working vertically over a piece of squared paper…..

…….then horizontally with tiny cross stitches at the cross-over points. There aren’t any photos of the finished leaf with the paper taken out and lazy daisy stitches in the squares.

The satin stitch was also finished, but at this stage the Pekinese stitch was abandoned for other projects.

I wanted to have a copy of all the leaves before I started cutting them out. I tried tracing them, and using a light box and a window without much success. Then I realised a simple photocopy would do the job! I think that when I’d wanted to get on with it, I’d not had access to a photocopier, and not done it when I’d got home.

I traced them on to pelmet vilene with the light box and numbered them all.

I did a row of running stitches with a big knot at the beginning round the leaf, cut it out, put the pelmet vilene in and pulled it up to gather it ….

….. and the first one is done. I realised it would be easier to gather and fit in the pelmet vilene if I had a thread with a knot each side of the leaf, especially at the points.

Feather stitch.

I’ve left the ends on this one, they may get used for stems.

I’ve laced the backs and put a little watered PVA on the raw edges.

I need to finish the Pekinese stitch before I do the rest, preparing them all before starting to attach them. (It would have been better if I’d stitched them further apart, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to use them when I did them. It was only later that I found they would work on my jacket!)