Ottoman double running progress

It is a long time since I wrote about my progress on the vase of flowers piece I started with Carol Mullan at the SA Embroiderers' Guild Summer School. The Maharani's Fishpond rather took over!

I did eventually finish the piece - not without some difficulties, mostly derived from lack of concentration.

Much of the design is worked using double running in steps. I enjoyed learning that technique. The artichoke-like motifs afforded me some challenges. I needed good magnification and a lot of concentration to count


 I struggled a little with getting strong enough colour on the linen, which is Permin lambs wool (colour description, not fabric). The single strand colour, although dark, did not make a solid impression on the linen.

One of the techniques outlined in our notes was to overlay the double running stepped grid with double running stitch on the diagonals. Although this does not look as ordered and geometric as the outlined grid, it does afford a sense of solid colour, so I worked this in the larger blocks of the design.                                                                                 While stitching this, I  pondered what to do with the finished piece. Framing does not appeal to me. I've been carrying the piece around in the Ottoman pouch I made from Alison Snepp's design and it occurred to me that this might be a good way to use the piece of linen.

I found a piece of denim and lined it with some batik that had served as a tablecloth for many years until it fell into holes. I salvaged some of it. Although pairing it with the Ottoman double running piece creates a mix of ethnicities, the colours work.

It was tricky to get the size and layout right, so the linen would end up on the back of the pouch and right way up (apologies for the horrible colour of the denim in the photo!).

I didn't succeed in getting it perfectly geometrical, but this is a piece of folk craft and I will adapt as I stitch. 


More on the construction soon.