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Friday, May 10, 2013

Winter Birds Finished

I have been very busy over the last few weeks, painting and reorganising my revamped sewing room ( a post on that soon) doing a bit of consultancy work and scanning and organising photos and documents for family history. I have, however, finished the Winter Birds table topper!

I tried two more stitch variations in finishing the project.  Instead of simply couching down the pine needles as I did in the first quarter of the table topper, I tried coral stitch. This stitch is new to me, but I noticed it in a magazine and tried it out. Essentially, instead of a simple couching stitch, you work what amounts to a buttonhole stitch, taking the thread under the needle before taking it through to the back of the fabric.


 It produces texture, which, for this project, I thought added a bit of interest, so I used coral stitch on two of the four sides (opposites) and couching on the other two sides.






My other variation involved the snow. Having pulled out the satin stitch and replaced it with split back stitch on the first two sides, I decided to try padding the satin stitch on the third side. I worked satin stitch in one direction, then over the top in the other direction. It gave a smooth finish and a bit of dimension. I was happy to leave it on side three ( a talking point) but reverted to the split back stitch on the fourth side.

This has been an uplifting, relaxed project to work on. The finished product will be useful, and a cheerful reminder of northern hemisphere winters.




7 comments:

Jillian Mary said...

That looks lovely, Jillian. I do like the way you experimnant with stitches. Did you do the edging too, or did that come with the kit?

Jillian said...

The piece came with the edging already applied - one of the things that attracted me. It's nice sometimes to just stitch - no construction needed.
Thanks for commenting. I have recently reapplied the scrambled letters as the spam started to mount up. I'll take it off again if commenting gets too difficult.

margaret said...

what a lovely table cloth you have made.
Re the spam I put a link on my blog to say anonymous comments will not be accepted and that has stopped them all.

Russell Hunt (Australia) said...

Artful and skillful. Most importantly, your having fun.

Jillian said...

Thanks for the comment and the tip. I'll try that. The scrambled letters are sometimes difficult and off-putting.

Jillian said...

You bet, Russell. So relaxing and pleasurable.

Monica said...

The finished piece looks wonderful, Jillian! I particularly like the coral stitch pine needles - I will try to remember that one.

For me, I find it works best to allow anonymous comments, but keep the word verification.