While embroidering Panel #1 I had a couple of problems with the fabric…firstly the threads of the weave (25 count linen) were to obvious to ignore and I couldn’t not count them which was difficult because my eyes arn’t so good any more…I also had trouble keeping the tension of my stitches, I don’t use a hoop and I was missing the extra bulk of the crazy blocks that I have done most of my stitching on.
When I mentioned the thread counting problem to Sharon she suggested and gave me some higher count linen which I can ignore the threads on and I figured that to help with the tension I could back the fabric with a light weight, loose weave cotton fabric which has helped with the tension as well as making it easier to start and finish the threads.
I am sure that the higher count fabrics will be nice to work on and I will use the pieces that Sharon gave me because I want to use different fabrics for each panel but being a bit contrary I am doing the second panel on a lower count (21 count Linen) fabric because when I pulled my Spanish Blackwork Tablecloth out the other night I remembered that there had been a scrape of the linen that was cut off to make the tablecloth square, what is quite amazing is that I was able to find that scrape whithin minutes of remembering it…I thought that it would be nice to Stitch on the same Linen as I used for the tablecloth all those years ago.
The first image tonight shows the back of the second panel with the linen hemmed, this time I used one of the threads I pulled from the fabric to do the hem stitch and the backing fabric.
I use lines of tacking to help in counting the threads and to keep the lines strait.
Top row is Buttonhole Stitch with alternating long and short arms stitched with a rayon thread and trimmed with beads.
Middle row is Buttonhole stitch with the arms stepped down, stitched with 3 strands of cotton.
Bottom row is another stepped variation of Buttonhole Stitch done with 6 strands of cotton.
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