Unstitching
May 6, 2008 by jowynn
Well, I should have worked the S for practice first. After spending over an hour getting this far in covering the padding with gold purl, it was clear that what I was doing wasn’t giving me the results I wanted.
Although the focus is poor, you can see that the spacing of the gold purls coming around the curve are not aligned at the right angle. So I took them out.
It takes almost as long to unstitch goldwork as to stitch it. Afterwards, I trying drawing on paper the way the gold purls should lie, but nothing I drew looked workable. I’ve done this kind of stitching before, and I have lots of examples of it in books, but none that show this kind of stitching on the curves of an S. I’m resolved to try again today before deciding that I’ll have to try some different kind of thread to cover the S.
This is strenuous work for me, as one has to sit upright directly over the work to place the stitches accurately. Cutting each little purl is exacting and sometimes it takes several tries to get JUST the right length. Holding that posture over time is very tiring for me. But I love to do the work!
Hi, JoWynn,
Would you consider covering the padding of the S with gold leather, then couching purl or jap round the perimeter? Otherwise, I think you’d need to stitch it down in different directions in sections, like a mosaic. Very frustrating to put so much effort in to no avail. You’re inspiring me to get back with the goldwork, however!
Best wishes
Thanks for showing your progress. Even seeing how you correct missteps is important. Once you figure out your technical problem, it’s going to be lovely.
Your choice of stabilizers is interesting to me. I have been using water soluble stabilizer to transfer embroidery designs that I execute in cotton, but my next project is going to be in silk, and I don’t think I want to wet it, so I bought some tear-away. I hope this is going to work, but I guess experimentation is how we learn.
Go slow and take lots of breaks.
We sewists call it frogging: as in rrrrrrrrrrip, rrrrrrrrrrrrrip
Oh dear, after all your planning, you skipped one practice step that turned out to be important after all. Ssslllloowwww art, indeed.
If you didn’t love it so much, I’d feel rotten for you
When you have some time, I would love to know how that gold thread is made. Thinking about it during a sleepless night:-0
I really like the “S” and think you did a good job, although I am not a seamstress.
I’m blogging (for ME/CFS Awareness Day on May 12, 200
at a rare time when I actually feel okay. It may only be for one hour, but I’ll take it.
Here’s a link where you can read some about my story with CFS and find out more about the Awareness Day.
http://handmadebyannabelle.blogspot.com/
Thank you for supporting the efforts of awareness!
Annabelle