So on my Big Damn List of Stuff to Get Done, there is a notebook of swatches from Sewing I, II, and III to finish. I had just a few things to get done here and there, so I've been going in to school on Wednesday nights to work on it. I decided to work on the embroidery swatch at home, since hand-sewing can be so time consuming.
So yesterday, I sat and watched many episodes of Glee and did some embroidery on the drawn-thread hem stitch square from last week. I knew that I wanted to use a few particular stitches, so I made up this little fern and flower motif. Originally, I just used the lavender and dark green thread, but the flowers looked a little bare without anything in the center, so I grabbed a length of yellow thread yesterday when I was at the school working on pants construction.
Initially, I had just freehand sketched some flowers on the back and stitched over the sketches, but I didn't like how sloppy it looked. I started searching for something small and circular to trace instead, and found the perfect thing - a bobbin! So I traced the outside and inside circles of the bobbin, marked six points on the outside and six on the inner circle, and went to town. Even though each petal isn't quite perfect, I like it much better!
I did yellow French knots in the centers of the flowers, and let me tell you, they're a total pain. I finally figured out that since the knots are not technically not secured, the coils come undone if you pull too hard on the thread or mess with the coils too much. It took me many tries and a lot of cursing to make knots that I was happy with.
Even though it's a simple design, the overall effect is exactly what I was going for. And now the embroidery portion of my sewing notebook is done!
1 comment:
French knots are on my list of things to learn. It looks wonderful - much better than anything I could freehand.
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