Hand Stitching: Almost Finished

After establishing the background colors with large shapes, I worked smaller ones on top.  Lots of partial buttonhole wheels.  Next, I started adding more texture and color with bullion knots ( the ones that look like caterpillars.)  I decided they were too much work, so resorted to that old stand by, French knots.

Click on an image for a larger view.emb. 3

At this point, I was pretty happy with the BACKGROUND stitching, but I thought the French knots were too high contrast in places.  I hoped I could integrate everything better with the beading.

Here’s a detail shot of my results.  I think I succeeded in integrating the colors pretty well.  (Who am I kidding?  I was actually delighted with the results!)

bead detail 1 w. border

As you can see from the photo above, the stitching distorted the fabric (see the curvy border) so I blocked it back into shape.

blocking

I’ll show you the finished results in the next blog.

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  There’s a tutorial on blocking on my website.  See it here.  (It shows quilts, but the process is exactly the same for handwork.)