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Tuesday, December 5, 2017

SA Embroiderers' Guild Certificate Workshop: Monograms and Satin Stitch.

I learn so much from being able to attend the Guild's Certificate Workshops, even though I am not enrolled in the course. The November workshop was taken by Christine Bishop and focused on Satin stitch via the medium of a monogram.

Christine provided us with some lovely linen on which to experiment. I chose a solid, large but not gigantic, letter J from amongst the many stencils Christine brought along. For the sake of seeing clearly and being bold I chose to work in red. It was only after Christine pointed it out that I realised I had opened myself to a Christmas theme!

I have, of course, worked quite a lot of satin stitch in my time, but there is a lot of room for improvement.  Christine's tips and instructions certainly helped. I ended up with a reasonable letter - improved by backstitch around the outside edge.

With some instruction, I added a trailing vine and French knot berries.


I discussed with a couple of my fellow students some options to turn this into something useful. I was thinking of a button to wear as a brooch. A stocking was also suggested.





Once I got home, I found some red beads to liven up the berries. I played with the brooch idea but soon hit on the idea of a pinwheel. I like pinwheels, and have been thinking for a couple of months of making one.  So  pinwheel it was.


I had some pieces of milk carton in my Basics to Beyond kit, so cut them to size using a tumbler as template, along with some wadding.





I scrounged around in my stash to find some appropriate figured linen for the back, gathered and lashed the two pieces.


















I chain-stitched around each disc- in cream on the back and a two-colour chain in red and green on the monogram.
To help me keep track of it - and so it can also hang as a decoration - I added a twisted cord.


I then whipped the two discs together.


As a special treat I ordered a pack of red glass-headed pins to complete my pinwheel. They arrived yesterday and worked as well as I hoped.





A great outcome - a useful, pretty object, improvement in my satin stitch and a really pleasant 5 hours spent with a great group of women.

2 comments:

D1-D2 said...

It's a lovely ornament.

Monica said...

That was a great idea for finishing the project! It really looks great, and I always like embellished initials. Right on time!