Emery jack-in-the-box finish

I am conscious, in writing about how I embroidered and constructed these tools, that the intellectual property of the design and construction belongs to Betsy Morgan. I have been trying to write about each piece in a way that doesn't breach that. It is not always easy to work out how I can describe what I did without encroaching on the teacher's IP. I hope I have succeeded.

The construction of the basic box in which the Jack sits was by now familiar, so I got that bit done and gathered the box, the lid, its lining and the loop to hold the emery.


I was worried that the very fine emery would leak out, so I stitched the bundle of emery closed in a vigorous, if inelegant manner before attaching the ring.



The fiddliest bit was attaching the ribbon to the spring, but it worked OK.

In the end, the 'push' on the lid is quite strong against the bead catch, but it holds, and works.

And the lid? - Looks better than I had hoped, a testament to the hours of work in those petit point lines!



So, the Etui is finished. Here are a couple of photos of the finished pieces, both inside and outside the box.

Emery Jack-in-the-box embroidery

This is the very last of the Toy Chest Etui toys for me to make. I can't say I have any wish to make more!

The basic shape is the box with which we are now familiar from the thimble-keep and waxer. This one is very slightly larger than those two. As this was one of the additional kits I purchased at the class, I needed to do the embroidery first.

The little fan motifs in this piece were quite fun to do. I tried not to get too far ahead with these without adding the central rows of petit-point cross-stitch in the centre of each panel - so I didn't end up with all the difficult bits at the end!

I do like the colour combination in this piece.











The tricky bit, however, came, as I knew it would, with the lid.



The central motif of the lid is a series of squares in diagonal stripes - each one thread wide. I chose to do these as diagonal rows rather than as alternating tent stitch in two colours across each horizontal row.

The difficulty is exacerbated by all threads being variegated. At some points the variegation in the two colours in any one square ends up almost identical - an interesting effect, but very tricky to stitch.

 I found this quite a challenge - but got there in the end.

I have rarely been so relieved to reach the end of a piece.

The lid looks wonky to the eye, but for the most part it isn't. The variegation in the thread means you don't get a nice crisp look on the edge.

Now for the construction and FINISH!