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!)
I continued my hair slide at “In the stitch zone”, having decided in the end to use the little coiled rings and stitch a red bead in the middle of each one. I’ve spaced them singly, twos close together and a three, placing them all fairly centrally, thinking that they are less likely to get tangled in my hair than near the edges.
I cut out two pieces of pelmet vilene and a piece of red felt, intending to put the layer of felt behind the stitching. I roughly pinned them together to check how it would work.
I did a row of running stitches around the edge and centre hole, with a good secure knot at the beginning to be able to gather it up over the vilene. I did the back first to check it would work.
Then I did the front, and it was almost done before I realised I’d put the felt over the vilene. I didn’t want to unpick it, so the felt is between the two layers of vilene which seems to work fine.
I put a tiny bit of PVA on the back, over where I had snipped to get a neat finish, but unfortunately it seeped through a little. Not a problem, it would be against my head, and would probably dry invisibly (well, almost). I slip stitched / ladder stitched the front to the back, in the middle and round the outer edge.
The slide is finished, and it’s used up a few bits of my stash that I wasn’t sure what to do with.
I’m pleased with the colours and textures, and wore it to the session this week. A few of the group noticed, and Alex took some photos for me.
It works with the orange things that I wear as well as the red!
The Postie delivered a lovely squishy package containing the above fabrics. What to do with them? I fairly quickly recalled in an old Stitch magazine an image of triangular shaped vessels which I have long meant to attempt.
I managed not to distract myself with looking through the old magazines, just the covers, as I knew there was an image on the front cover; it was issue 39, February / March 2006. It was a piece done by Helen Cowan.
Towers of Flowers by Helen Cowan
I found some more threads and ribbons I could snip up to add to the mix, same colour palette but varying textures and thicknesses. Not all ended up been used, including the water-colour piece: another project sometime.
Bits of ribbon and threads, and a piece of water-colour play I added to the mix.
I did start following the instructions and tried out different widths of triangle, settling on the narrower one, it looked more elegant. I then drew round my template on to the pelmet vilene.
Trying out size and proportions of isosceles triangles in card.Inktense pencils
I used Inktense pencils, doodling directly on to damp pelmet vilene. It didn’t spread quite as I expected, but in this case it didn’t matter as it was going to be pretty much hidden by the snippets of fabric. Once it was dry I ironed on slightly bigger triangles of bond-a-web.
Inktense pencils on pelmet vilene
Working on the ironing board, I laid the triangles on the Teflon sheet so that they wouldn’t need moving once the snippets were in place. Then the snipping began, bits of the fabric and threads until most of the background was hidden. I ironed it as a sandwich between the Teflon sheet with an old iron, it’s too easy to wreck your good iron!!
Adding snippets of fabric. More snippingThreads of various thickness added
Not all the pieces were stuck down, so I sprinkled on some bonding granules before adding the chiffon scarf, and ironing again in the Teflon sandwich.
Layer of chiffon scarf ironed on
A section of the flowery fabric had iron-on vilene added to the wrong side and I “fussy-cut” them out while talking to friends on-line. There wouldn’t have been so many otherwise.
Fussy-cut flowers on iron-on vilene
I wanted the backs to be coloured, but not patchy, so applied the Inktense pencil with a wet brush, taking the colour directly from the end of the pencil. Some inevitably gets on to the wood of the pencil, but goes the next time it’s sharpened. They reminded me of the sugar flowers you can put on cakes, but didn’t fancy trying them, pretty as they looked.
Painted on the back with Inktense pencilsThey look like sugar flowers
I stitched the bigger flowers just in the centres with French knots, and the little heart-shaped pieces just at the bottom, with a tiny stab stitch, and making sure I was not too close to the edge. I didn’t want the zig-zag to catch them down.
Flowers stitched on with French knots and tiny stab stitches
I cut the triangles out and laid them on various options of fabric for the lining, and decided on the bottom one, a warmer, darker purple that toned well, but gave more contrast.
This is where I really went off piste with the instructions, it needed another later of pelmet vilene, and more bond-a-web, and I could only find enough bond-a-web (in the black hole with the calico) to cover one more set of triangles and that was only just. So I decided the best solution was to put the pink face down on the Teflon sheet, patchwork the bond-a-web on the back and lay the ironed purple fabric on top. It worked, but I was concerned it would move as I put the purple down.
Backing attached with bond-a-web
I wanted to do satin stitch round the edges of each piece and decided to do a short, wide-apart stitch to make sure the front was well anchored to the back. I then discovered that I could change the stitch width on satin stitch with the speed control! I’ve only had the machine about 15 years!
Close-up of first row of wide-apart satin stitch
I then cut them all out before doing another row, wider and closer together, on all three pieces and the base. I didn’t understand the instructions at this point, as they talked about a square base, but I just cut an equilateral triangle at the beginning and did the same at the sides, but with less snipping on it.
Cut out ready to add another row of satin stitch
I forgot to take photos at this stage, but just butted the sides one at a time up to the base triangle and did a really wide satin stitch over both pieces. The instructions had said to hand stitch them together, and the sides, but the base folded up beautifully and I reckoned that if I butted the sides carefully together I could machine stitch from part way down to the bottom, narrowing the satin stitch at the very bottom to almost a straight stitch. It worked, with a bit of folding and manipulation for all three sides.
I then added three beads to the apex of each triangle, and curled them down.
It holds a little secret inside. When you peep in, you can see I’ve put the fancy side inside, rather than the purple lining. The fancy side at the base would only have been hidden!
As usual you can see the responses from the rest of the group on the Grasby Embroiderers Facebook page.
debbidipity 