This serves two purposes: the practical one of neatening the edges and covering the remaining cut linen, and a more decorative one of adding a bit of sparkle.
I'm using imitation Japanese gold passing thread no. 8, the same as for the goldwork on the central crosses, but in this case just singly. To couch it down, I'm using a single strand of whichever stranded cotton I used for the edge of the flower; the idea is to harmonise with the flower itself, but still have the gold showing through to lift the design.
For the pearlwort flowers, this is Madeira 0103. I'm placing the couching stitches quite close together, just a millimetre or so, partly because that just works better for a small curved shape such as this, but also because it then gives more of a feel of the colour, which is the effect I'm after:
Not all of the outline of the flower is in the yellow, however, so for the green area, I've switched to a single strand of the green I used for it, Madeira 1410, to couch the gold:
I then pulled the ends of the gold thread through to the back of the fabric and finished them off neatly.
The gold thread has covered most of the linen edging, but there are a few stray fibres sticking out. It's too much of a risk to try and cut them and I don't want to try and pull them out, so I used the eye end of my needle to tuck them back under the flower, out of sight:
Here's the finished flower:
And here's as far as I've got so far:
There are a lot more to go! You can see the difference between the edged flowers and the ones still to do quite clearly - it's a big improvement.
This is a bit more time-consuming a process than applying them to the fabric in the first place, so there's quite a bit of work still to do.
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It makes a huge difference, doesn't it! I won't consider appliquing without doing an cord edging of some type now I've seen it.
ReplyDeleteThe gold edging really makes the flowers pop! But this must be so tedious - do you listen to music or books while you stitch?
ReplyDelete@Cynthia: I'm afraid I actually quite enjoy it! But I do listen to stuff, though, you're right. I listen to music, either on my iPod or the radio (BBC 6Music, usually), and while I don't listen to audiobooks, I do listen to a lot of spoken-word programmes on the wonderful BBC Radio 4. I'm pretty sure both stations broadcast over the web, so why not give them a try!
ReplyDelete@Elmsley Rose: I *always* edge appliqué, though I more often do this by stitching a row of chain stitch around the edge. This might be in a matching colour, such as for the character cushions, or in a contrasting one, most commonly metallic. I do like a bit of glitter!
Aren't almost all embroiderers magpies at heart? *grin*
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