03.06.10
Posted in Free Patterns at 11:25 am by deRomilly
Oops! It’s Saturday! I completely forgot it was Friday yesterday, even though I knew it was Friday, if that makes any sense. Probably I’m just babbling. But here it is… my stitching on…
Step 4
This week we’re going to finish the flower center. We’re now into the actual raised embroidery part of the piece. Much fun!I’m going to try something different with the images today. I’m adding them at the bottom of the post as a gallery – I’m getting really funky formatting otherwise. You can click them to enlarge them, and please post comments if you don’t like this arrangement and would rather have them in the steps. I’ll delve deeper into fixing the problems then!
- Cut two circles out of your felt. The first one should be the size (and shape, because it’s not really a perfect circle) of the flower center. The second one should be a bit smaller. If you don’t want your flower center to be quite this raised, you can use just the larger piece of felt and leave out the smaller one. I like high relief.
- Tack the smaller circle into the center of your flower first, and then cover it with the larger piece and tack that down around the edges as well. Putting the smaller piece down first means that you’ll have a smooth surface to stitch into later, instead of having to navigate “stairs.”
- Cover the padding with french knots. Be careful not to pull the knots extremely tight in the center area of the circle. You want the padding to work as padding, and it’s easy to pull the felt down almost to the ground fabric, so that you lose the point of putting it there in the first place!
- So that’s that! Next week we’ll get into the REALLY fun part — wired, detached petals and leaves!!!
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Cut 2 felt circles
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Tack the small piece of felt down.
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Starting to add the french knots
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French knots from the side. See how they go up and over the center?
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The center is finished!
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A bit closer image of the finished center
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I’m coming to love viewing needlework at different angles!
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02.26.10
Posted in Free Patterns at 10:01 am by deRomilly
The flower as it stands now
This was a difficult step for me. And it shouldn’t have been. The original plan was to stitch the petals in long and short stitch, but for some reason, whether it was an arthritic flareup, or the weather, or the particular embroidery floss I used, it didn’t stitch smoothly. I ripped it out three times before changing stitches and getting to this point!
Step 3
Fill in the larger petals.
- Begin by extending the petal lines down to the flower center. You can draw these in, or just extend them when you outline them.
- Using 2 strands of floss, outline the petals in either split stitch or backstitch. I used split stitch.
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Detail of the stitches - click for closeup
Fill the petals in with one of the following options:
- Using 1 or 2 strands of floss, use long and short stitch from the center of the flower out to the edges of the petals.
- Using 3 strands of floss, fill the petals using Roumanian couching. This is what I did in the end. I came up at the center of the flower, brought the thread down over the split stitch border, and then couched it through the middle with one stitch. Mary Corbet of NeedleNThread.com has a very good video tutorial for Roumanian Couching stitch. Fill in all the petals. I still need to finish the lower two, and then it’s on to the wired stumpwork!
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02.22.10
Posted in Finished Projects at 2:53 pm by deRomilly
The full dragon banner. Has tab hangers at the top.
FINALLY!
My godson/pseudo-nephew turned 13 yesterday. In honor of the event, I made a point of finishing his dragon banner – that he still doesn’t know he’s got, since he spent the weekend at his father’s. After I post this, I shall be delivering it to him.
Dragon Detail
Remember the banner? This has been a LONG year for me. While I finished the stitching back in the summer, I still have a phobia of ruining my embroidery during my attempts to really finish things. So it took me until this weekend, when, in a fit of “I feel much better after a week of being sick, thankyouverymuch” energy, I just went and DID it. I’m proud of the results. The EO says if the kid doesn’t like it, he’ll take it himself. 
Click the images for more detail!
Edited 2/26/10 to add – Well, when he opened it he hugged it to his chest and went dancing around the room with it, so I guess it’s a success! 
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07.21.09
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:37 pm by deRomilly
I have a box full of “half-finished” needlework. What I mean by “half-finished” may not be what you expect.
You see, what I mean is that the embroidery is finished, but the product isn’t. So. Half-finished. You see, I hate prep work and “finishing” work with a passion. the prep work has to be done or I don’t get to stitch. but the finishing work — which entails either “real” sewing (and me terrified I’m going to ruin a piece I stitched and love) or more work similar to the prep work (for example, lacing to a board for framing), or paying someone else to do these things is something I often don’t get around to doing. So, I have a box of unfinished finished objects in my studio that is getting close to overflowing, and none of my own work on the walls or chairs in my house.
Anyway, I noticed last week that the box was getting overly full, and something had to be done. So instead of tackling the main problem – the finishing work — I took photos of the work to share here over the course of the next few weeks. Yup. I’m still procrastinating about finishing them.
The first one is a piece that I did to hang in our bathroom, which is supposed to, in the long run, gain a Gothic Castle theme. There’s a shower curtain that is most definitely a UFO and will probably stay that way as well… I’m still considering whether to admit that I bit off more than I can chew with that one. I may go ahead and start a different one in a technique that’s more likely to actually get finished! LOL Click on the images for details.
Remember that I’m a horrible masochist when it comes to needlework. This is done in mostly satin and stem stitch… on cotton muslin, and measures about six or seven inches wide. When you look at the details — all of that satin stitch is done with one strand of DMC floss. I told you I was crazy…
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Full Gothic piece
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Gargoyle detail
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Detail of base
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01.26.09
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:00 am by deRomilly
OK, so maybe kitty-pillows aren’t the best present for a soon-to-be twelve boy. (Although I still know he’ll love it, I’m a bit iffy about the whole concept).
I’ve still got until February. I was going to give him curtains for his room with dragons embroidered on them. But I discovered that the dragon I had and the curtains I had didn’t go together size-wise. So he got the curtains last week. Probably a good thing anyway, as they were needed.
The curtains were originally made for my husband and my first apartment together. We had HUGE windows that weren’t well insulated. The curtains are a heavy polyester/wool blend in a medium grey, with brass rings on the top. They are hand-hem-stitched all the way around. (Have I mentioned that I’m often over-ambitious?)
Anyway. They are on his windows. Sans dragons. But I’ve still go the dragon patterns… two of them, so they can face each other on the curtain rods. I also have about 9 yards of dark grey fabric left over from an inexpensive buying spree years ago that resulted in matching 12th century clothing for the EO and I… BANNERS! That’s it! I can stitch banners, one for each window to go over the curtains in a sane location. They’ll last longer than the curtains, too, and can be moved to college or an apartment or wherever if he’s still dragon-happy as he ages (which I suspect he will be. Currently he’s following my pattern of development with the exception of my love of ballet – he’s replaced that with computer games – pretty closely).
So I’ve started the banners. They’re actually coming quite quickly, even the setup part that I hate to do. See? The first one’s already basted onto the fabric… It’s too dark to do the tracing thing, and I’ve never been able to make transfer paper marks stay on the fabric as long as it takes me to stitch something. Isn’t his face wonderful? I’m taking the basting out as I stitch (not enough to photograph for you yet, but it will come). i’m replacing it with black micron pen. It’s difficult to see on the grey, but it’s visible.
And it’s waterproof so there won’t be an issue with it running if the kiddo washes these in the future.
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