Shaded snowdrop - cutting out and making up

Having painted the pack of the finished embroidery with diluted PVA glue and left it overnight to dry, I cut out the snowdrop:

I'm getting used to dealing with the fiddly shape by now!

This time, I'm applying it to a green velvet background, for a complete contrast with the previous snowdrops.  I used one strand of the appropriate shades to stitch it down around the edges, tucking any wisps of the organza under as far as possible:

And trimmed and finished with a backing fabric, to neaten it up:

I think that's it for snowdrops for the time being, but I do thinks it's a pretty design.  It's worked well in the three different ways I've done it, and I'm sure would lend itself to other interpretations too.

White snowdrop sample - cutting out and making up

Happy holidays everyone!

I'd wanted to get this finished before the festivities and have just made it, so here we go.

You know the drill by now: I painted the back of the stitches with diluted PVA glue, and after leaving it to dry overnight, could start to cut it out:

And fully cut out, including the fiddly bits in the middle:

I think it looks pretty good against the black background, but the idea here was white-on-white, so I stitched it to a piece of white silk satin.  Pinned into position:

And stitched:

I backed this with some dove grey satin, just to neaten it up.  The finished piece:

I'm not 100% happy with how this has turned out.  The stitching gives a textured appearance which usually I like, but I think something smoother would have worked better in this case: if I was doing it again I would use satin stitch instead.  Still, that's the whole point of doing these sample pieces, to experiment and find out what works and what doesn't, so that next time I can do it better.

Maybe I should make 'try and do it better' into my resolution for 2015.  See you in the New Year!

Silver snowdrop sample - completed

With the snowdrop cut out, I needed to stitch it to a background fabric, but as this is an experiment, I decided to try a completely different fabric to usual: net.

Pinned to a square of white net:

The pins all go over the stitching, not into it, and are enough to hold it in place.

I stitched it down with the same stranded cotton used for the satin stitch, with the stitches going right over the stitched parts (outlines and leaves) rather than into the stitching, in the hope that it wouldn't be visible when I was finished:

I think that works well, I'm pleased, though to make it stand out a bit better and feel a bit more robust, I stitched the net to a square of white silk satin:

They're just held together with a line of zig-zag machine stitching along the top - the snowdrop isn't stitched to the satin background at all.

All in all, I'm pleased with how this has turned out.  I think perhaps this technique would work better with a design with larger areas for the Italian tubular mesh wire ribbon to show through, but as a proof of concept it's turned out well.

And I do like that snowdrop...

Silver snowdrop sample - cutting out

And now the bit I've really not been looking forward to: cutting it out.  It's quite a fiddly design with quite a few skinny bits, so the potential for disaster is quite high.

No photo of this bit, but as is now becoming routine, I painted over the back of the stitching with watered-down PVA glue.  I only painted over the stitching, not the unstitched areas of the mesh in the centre of the larger parts of the design, as I didn't want anything coming through the the front where it might be visible.

Once that had dried properly (I always leave it overnight, to make sure), I started cutting it out - first around the edge:

I didn't notice that the snowdrop on the left had got tucked under the central one until it was far too late to retake the photo, but never mind.  You might also be able to see what looks like fluff on the paper it's resting on - this is actually little bits of wire from the mesh, which frayed everywhere from the offcuts, but - thankfully - not the side that had been overstitched.  I'd been a bit worried that it might all just unravel, but happily it didn't.

The unwanted areas in the middle cut away - the really scary bit!

Success!  That's a relief.  Stitching it to a background fabric should be plain sailing.

Acanthus leaf sample - completed

As this is just a sample piece I'm not making it up into anything, but I still want to finish it off nicely and put it on a background.  The first step towards that is to paint diluted PVA glue on the back:

It's still damp there so the colours look a little darker.

Once that had dried properly I then cut it out, which was a bit fiddly but OK:

I should say that the glue on the back is strong enough to hold the stitching together, but thin enough for the the embroidery to still be flexible; it's not at all stiff.

I then applied this to a cream silk satin background, then added a plain backing, just to cover the stitches and make it look neat:

Finished!

I like it - I'm pleased with how it's turned out.

'Jungle Book' slip case - making up the slip case

Time to assemble the slip case itself.  This is a sort of box that the book can slide in and out of, and so needs to fit the book quite snugly.  After some careful measuring, I cut mount board to fit:

These pieces will form the front and back, top and bottom, and the spine.

They all need to be covered in fabric; I have the front, of course, as that's what I've been embroidering, but for the others I've cut more of the same green dupion.  I've also lined it with the same fine linen even though it's not going to be embroidered, to make it the same weight as the front:

These pieces plus the embroidered one were laced onto the cut mount board pieces in the usual way:

The don't look too pretty on the back, though, and so need to be covered.  I have some lovely second-hand silk saris from Catfluff, and one of them - a yellow-orange colour with a printed design of little stylised buildings and plants - was just perfect:

This won't really be seen as it'll be on the inside of the finished slip case, but it's always nice to know it's there.

I cut some yellow felt to size:

Cut some slightly larger pieces of the sari silk and tacked them onto the felt:

Then ladder stitched them onto the back of the covered boards, covering the lacing:

With all the pieces ready, I could start assembling the slip case itself.  I first ladder stitched the front, spine and back together:

And then added the top and bottom:

Finished!

I'll show you how it looks with the book tomorrow.

Apple tree fire screen - glue...

On the whole, I've never felt that glue and embroidery go together.  I'll admit to occasionally using small amounts of 505 fabric spray glue to hold small, fiddly appliqué shapes in place before I stitch them, but that's all.  I dislike Bondaweb and other fusible fabrics and never use them, and wouldn't dream of using proper glue anywhere near my work.

Until now.

In her description of her technique, Michele Carragher says that she paints a thin layer of glue over the back of the work to hold the stitches in place.  I'm following her instructions for this, so like it or not, that's what I had to do next.

'A thin layer of glue' is a bit unspecific, so I opted for PVA craft glue (i.e. white glue), which I thinned down with about a 1:1 ratio of glue to water, though I didn't measure it out precisely.  Time to get painting!

I painted the glue over the back of all the stitching, and deliberately went beyond it onto the fabric too.  This all made me very nervous, I have to say.  The thought of glue on my embroidery just seems wrong, and I was worried that it would make it stiff or hard, or leave obvious marks.  I was also worried that the water might make the paint run and mark the threads.  I was worried that it may not make the stitching stiff enough, and hold the threads properly for the next stage and everything will unravel.

I'm still a bit worried about that last one, actually, but I think it'll be ok. I'm happy to say that it all seems to have worked out very well.  The paint didn't run, the stitches have dried firm but not hard, and it hasn't marked the front of the work at all.  What a relief!

The next stage is a bit scary too, though I think I'll put it off as long as possible with some necessary prep work!

Druid banner - putting it together (part 2)

Last time, I'd got as far as adding the tabs for the carrying pole along the top.  The pole itself will be in two parts, in a 'T' shape, and so will also pass up the centre of the back.  To stop it blowing about and becoming difficult to carry, I also added two loops, made in the same way as the top tabs, to the back:

As with the tabs along the top, I made sure that these were stitched to the canvas, not just the top fabric. The pole will thread through them, and should make carrying the banner easier.

Next, I added a fringe along the bottom, and a woven tape with my name on at the top - inside the banner, so it won't be seen when it's finished, but I'll know it's there!

The very last thing to do is to add the top fabric - the part with the embroidery on.  Firstly, I stitched it in place along the bottom edge, to anchor it:

I forgot to take any photos, but next I stitched the front fabric to the canvas, to ensure that the entire banner acts as one single item.  This was easier to do than for the back as I could place the stitches where the appliqué is, so there was less chance of it being seen on the surface.

The front panel pinned in place:

I then ladder stitched it all the way round - and finished!

I'll post a photo of the finished piece tomorrow...

Druid banner - putting it together (part 1)

Time to start putting the banner together.

The banner is lined with a piece of quite heavy cotton canvas cut to the final size, to give it some weight and support; the banner itself will be assembled around this.

After thoroughly damp-stretching both the front and the pack panels, I attached the bottom hem of the fabric forming the back of the banner (a plain green with no embroidery) to the canvas using herringbone stitch:

I then stitched the canvas to the back fabric with a few widely-separated stitches:

This is a bit tricky as I don't want the stitches to be visible on the surface, but necessary to make the banner one single piece, rather than a collection of bits of fabric moving independently.  Small stitches, done very carefully!

With that done, I could hem the other three sides, again using herringbone stitch to attach it to the canvas, and mitre the corners:

The banner will hang from a bar along the top, so a series of tabs need to be added for this to pass through.  Using the same green cotton sateen fabric as the main body of the banner, I cut eight equal-sized pieces and lined them with linen:

Then machine-stitched the long edges together:

Turned right side out and pressed, with the seam down the centre of one side:

Six of the them were then folded over to form a loop and machine-stitched in a 'Z' to anchor:

These were then stitched onto the banner panel, making sure that the stitches went through the canvas, not just the top fabric:

There's a wider space in the middle to allow for the carrying pole.

That's a lot of it done, but still some work to do yet!

Lindisfarne Stones: assembly

With all the stitched sections finished, it's time to put it all together.

I cut pieces of mount board, to form the 'box':

The top of the box needs to have a hole cut in it to frame the carved stone; to do this, I first traced the shape and stuck it to one of the larger pieces of mount board:

I roughly cut as much of the central section away as I could, then cut slits up to the line, and very carefully cut away each section:

You can see I've made a start round the left dog's nose.

Fully cut:

And tidied up a bit:

The stitched panels were cut out, leaving a margin:

The side panels were attached to the board sections, and stitched together at the sides.  I have to confess: I used PVA glue to attached the margins (not the stitched area) to the board.  I know from past experience that trying to lace skinny and awkward shapes is next to impossible, so I decided at the start that I'd glue them.

There was a problem, though - the heavy stitching had drawn the felt shapes I was stitching over in a bit.  These felt shapes had been cut exactly to size, so this meant that they were now slightly too small.  Just a couple of millimetres, but enough to be obvious.  If I was making a box I'd just have made it slightly smaller, but that wasn't an option here as they're a snug fit around the stone anyway, so some way of disguising the seam was needed.

Red ribbon!

The sides slotted over the stone very nicely:

The base was covered with red velvet, and ladder stitched to the sides:

Here's a last look at the top of the stonework, sitting in its box:

And with the top, attached to the cut board, added, leaving the carved design showing through:

More red ribbon covering the seams:

And finished!

I'll take some photos in better light, to show it off.