Monday 4 January 2010

Loose detached buttonhole padded heart - 3 colours red

Well, as I had all this red thread hanging around at this time of year, as you do, I couldn’t resist making a little heart ‘thing’ for my daughter.

It looks corny in its present state, I know, but I hope it wont be when its finished, as this is only one element of the final piece, which shouldn’t take too long to complete. I got the idea while I was sailing up the virtual Amazon browsing all the delicious titles along the riverbank…

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Here’s a close-up of the side stitches. Notice how the shape curves. I achieved this my making a very loose straight stitch return while working Detached Buttonhole (DBH), I stress, really loose. If you can imagine it as a sort of loop more than a normal straight stitch.

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Its my intention to ‘raise’ this embroidery eventually with stuffing. Creating a clear gap between the backing and your stitching in this way means way you don’t have to pad it first with felt or, most importantly, worry about decreasing or increasing, you just go back and forth as if it were perfectly flat. The intention wasn’t to save time however, it was more about what kind of ‘raised’ shape I want eventually, and in this case I want it to look convincingly convex with smooth sides.

This is what I’m going to use to stuff it as its so small. I don’t know what its called, only that its great for getting into tiny nooks and crannies.

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more later…

Nutshell progress report on THE BAG: Happy to say I’ve finally managed to find ‘just the right’ backing fabric for the bag. It might not be the best quality because its not as firm as I would have liked but I always meant to buy linen that would drape as the bag does in the picture. Work on the bag will commence in earnest once the better image arrives from Scala, the UK agents for The Met Museum in New York...oh I’m biting my nails as I type…

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