The Turquoise Serpent is finished!

Here's Xiuhcoatl, the Turquoise Serpent, in all his glory:

To form the final panel, the completed embroidery needed to be stretched onto a piece of board. Depending on the size of the final item I might use mount board for this, but I felt this was just too large for that, so I used a piece of hardboard, cut to size.

As I've mentioned before, this is quite a tactile piece, and the padded suede is actually quite hard, so for a contrast, I covered the board with a layer of polyester wadding.

I forgot to take a photo of this, but using tailor's chalk, I measured up and marked the size of the board on the back of the embroidery; this makes lining things up later a whole lot easier!

Using the chalk marks, I laid the covered board onto the fabric, folded this over the board, and pinned it into place on the edge of the board. If I'd been using mount board, I'd have used ordinary sewing pins for this, but the hardboard is too, well, hard for that, so I used drawing pins instead.

These are just to hold the fabric in place for the next stage, so it doesn't matter that the fabric isn't stretched tight yet.

Turning it over, I mitred the first corner and pinned it in place. (Instructions and clearer photos on how to do this are on my 'official' site.)

The thread sticking out of the top corner is crochet cotton, which I often use to lace up an embroidery as it's quite strong, though linen thread is probably better. I pulled this thread through before pinning the corner as it makes things a bit easier, though if you're carrful you can do it afterwards instead.

Using this thread, I ladder stitched the top and side edged together, forming the mitred corner.

Without finished it off, I then took the thread diagonally across the board to the opposite corner, and did the same again. The other two corners were secured in the same way, giving neat corners with no need for trimming, and an 'X' of thread across the board. Anchoring the corners first also means that the fabric is now held in place on the board even before the lacing has been done, so the drawing pins can be removed.

Using a ridiculously long length of the crochet cotton, I secured it at the centre of the long edge of the fabric, and laced it with herringbone stitch backwards and forwards between the top and bottom edges.

With such a long piece of thread, it's next to impossible to stop it tangling, so I don't even try to pull the lacing tight as I go. I get all the lacing in position first, then pull it tight a thread at a time, before fastening it off. Once the first centre-to-edge is done, I returned to the centre, and laced it to the second edge.

I then did the same again for the short edge.

It makes rather a nice pattern, doesn't it?

The embroidery is now nicely stretched onto its board, but I couldn't leave it with the back like that. I used black silk dupion for the backing, as it gives a good contrast in textures to the satin of the front. It was just some I had in my fabric cupboard, though, and was dress weight rather than upholstery weight, so I ironed on some fine black Vilene, to add a bit of strength.

I then pinned this to the back; I folded over the edges and pinned them in the centre first, before mitring the corners again, and pinning them into position, then adding more pins round the edges, to hold it fast.

I then ladder stitched round the edge, using a curved needle. They aren't the easiest things to use, and I always find them awkward to thread, but they do come into their own with jobs like this, as they avoid the tugging at the fabric you get when trying to get a straight needle at the right angle.

After the back was attached, all that needed doing was adding a label.

Finished!

Turquoise Serpent - the embroidery's finished

Just a quick post to say that all the embroidery on the Turquoise Serpent is now finished.

I've edged the body in two strands of couched Jap silver passing thread, to emphasise the coils; I could go for quite a distance without needing to finish off, so far fewer ends to deal with this time!

All the embroidery may now be finished and the piece taken off the frame, but there's still a bit of work to do to stretch it onto a panel, and finish it off properly. More on that next time!

Turquoise Serpent - silver infill

Firstly, an apology: posts have been very infrequent of late, and I'm sorry about that, and very grateful to those readers who keep coming back anyway. It's much appreciated!

With upheaval at work, a house full of decorators, and my birthday in there somewhere, I haven't managed to get nearly as much sewing done as I'd have liked, but I have battled on when I could, and have now finished the couched silver infill between the suede appliqué 'mosaic'.

I'm very glad that bit's done - I am so sick of finishing off the ends of the threads, I really am! It takes much longer than stitching them down in the first place. Still, they're all done now, and look much better in real life than in the photo (honestly!). It's not quite finished yet - I need to edge the body of the serpent, also in couched Jap silver, though that should be much more straightforward.

I don't go back to work until the New Year, so all being well, you should hear a bit more from me now than you have done recently!

Couched silver infill

I'm currently adding the silver infill between the appliquéd turquoise suede 'mosaic' pieces. This is couched silver thread, using a single silver passing thread, and worked as I described in my 'Goldwork - basic couching' post.

One big difference to the goldwork piece I described before is in the amount of starting and finishing there is to do. In that case (and this is definitely my preferred option!), I used two threads in parallel, and went round and round the shape to be covered with the couching, and when it was all done, finished the threads off. Two thread ends at the start, two at the end; just the four to take through to the back and fasten. Not this time - each gap between two appliqué pieces needs its own length of thread, which needs starting and finishing. I'm spending longer fastening the ends than I am actually sewing!

Still, it's worth it, I think. Here's a section of the Serpent, before the silver thread was added.

Next, I'm couching down the thread a section at a time, so I can finish off a group of ends in one go. This should give you some idea of how many of them there are!

There were six ends just for this small piece; all finished off neatly at the back, and we get this:

I'm quite pleased with the overall effect. I'm part way through the infill, so here's work so far.

Turquoise Serpent - all the leather appliqué's finished

I've finished applying all the leather 'mosaic' pieces to the Turquoise Serpent. And here he is:

I'm quite pleased with how the leather appliqué has gone; I'm pleased with the variety of shapes, and I'm pleased with the overall feel of it. The photo doesn't give any sense of the depth of the padding, which actually raises the appliqué off the background quite a way - I should try and take one from the side, to show how raised it is - but what it really fails to convey is what the appliqué feels like.

It's a more tactile piece than I'd envisaged, which I really like. Normally, my work is to be looked at, not prodded, though some of the 3D pieces do rather ask for it, but it's hard not to with this one. The stitching round the edge of each suede piece has worked rather like quilting, so that it bulges up in the centre of each one. Combined with the soft pile, for want of a better word, of the suede, it's very nice to the touch.

I mentioned when I first started the appliqué that I was leaving small gaps between the pieces deliberately. Now all the pieces are on, I'll fill the gaps with couched silver thread. I think this could take a long time...

Slow progress...

The Turquoise Serpent is coming along, but not all that quickly, I'm afraid. Still, here's progress so far:

One of the reasons I haven't done as much as I'd expected is that it's taking longer to cut the suede 'mosaic' pieces to shape than I thought it would. I want them to be interesting shapes and all different to each other, rather than a load of square blocks, but that does take longer, to get them all fitting together nicely.

Still, I'm happy with how it's coming along.

Turquoise Serpent - leather appliqué

I'm now adding the appliqué pieces. They're all going to be in leather this time - I've had enough fiddly fabric pieces for a while!

I started with the mouth, in red leather, and teeth, in silver kid.

I then added the turquoise suede "mosaic" to the detail over the eye.

This was followed by more turquoise suede, forming the mosaic pieces for the head.

The gaps between each piece are intentional - they'll be filled in later. Other than the mouth and teeth, I'm cutting each piece out as I go along - I don't have a plan of what's to go where; each one is cut to fit the ones next to it.

Using leather is much faster than using fabric - no folding it round felt, tacking overlaps, etc. - but it is a bit hard on the fingers. I'm using a leather needle, or else it would be next to impossible, but with all the layers to go through, it's still quite tough. I've been forced to use a thimble. I know many people can't sew without one, but I've never found them comfortable to use. Still, sometimes they're necessary, and this is one of those times.

Turquoise Serpent

I've been doing some reading, and it seems my serpent is Xiuhcoatl, the Aztec fire deity, and the embodiment of the dry season and the weapon of the sun. As Xiuhcoatl is something of a challenge to pronounce and spell for a Northern European such as myself, I am happy to report that it translates as 'turquoise serpent'. So from now on, that's what this piece is going to be called.

Back to business. The eye and the detail over the eye (it's not really an eyebrow, but I don't know what else to call it) need to be raised even more, and so have been padded with additional layers of felt, in the case of the over-eye detail, the final one covered with more black satin.

The rather wobbly lines are marking where the mouth is to go; it's next to impossible to keep a line of stitches straight when going through as much padding as this, but the good thing about marking out a design with stitches rather than a pencil or a transfer or even chalk, is that they can be pulled out in a moment and won't leave any mark.

I then added the eye, in pewter kid. This is the first thing not to be just background, and so marks something of a step forwards!

Some proper colour should be coming up next.

Apologies for the awful photos, by the way - I need to find a better way of photographing the black silk.

Aztec serpent - padding and covering

Did I say the fun part came next? I'm not sure why!

I want this piece to be raised rather than flat - stumpwork, I suppose - so it needs to be padded. As it's fairly large and I want it to be quite noticeably raised, I used carpet felt. I traced the outline of the design and stuck it to the felt with 505 fabric spray glue, then cut out the main shape with craft scissors:

and a craft knife for the tricky bits inside the coils, giving the complete shape:

After shaping the edges to give it a more rounded profile, and using the tacked outline as a guide, I stitched the felt shape onto the background fabric.

The poor serpent now looks like he's made out of a haystack rather than turquoise. Carpet felt definitely has its uses, but it's nasty scratchy stuff that sheds everywhere and makes me itch, so it can't be left like that. To provide a proper background for the rest of the work, I used the same technique as for the calligraphy cushions, cutting out the shape again in ordinary craft felt, and covering this in the same black satin as the background.

This time, the felt was cut a bit larger than the actual design, as it needed to be big enough to cover the raised carpet felt shape. I then stitched it over the raised shape, and removed all the tacking stitches.

The padding catches the light in this photo, which gives some idea of how thick it is. So, after all that, I can really make a start this time!