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