Embroidery project update
I've almost finished embroidering all satin stitch elements except the large flowers.
Well that and a couple of fruits.
The fruits are nasty and tricky though - there's lots of very fine blending of colour and they take ages to do - you can see what I mean below:
So far, 60 hours of embroidery time in total, over three weeks.
I'm really enjoying working with silk thread. It's harder and more fussy than cotton and tends to catch on every bit of dry skin I have on my hands, but it feels more "right" than cotton floss. Don't know whether that makes any sense. Also, it gives a very nice glossy finish if the satin stitch is done correctly. On the other hand, it requires much more precision for it to look right. If the stitches are a fraction of a millimetre too far or too close, the glossy effect disappears. Its a pain in the butt. Cotton is not that sensitive because it's not really glossy whatever you do with it.
The other thing I found with the silk thread is that it behaves differently according to the colour. It's a bit weird, but some colours are smoother/silkier than others, some are more likely to fluff up and some are more cotton like (such as the deep red I'm using at the moment). Don't know why.
Oh and the metal threads have been ordered. Hopefully they'll arrive just in time for me to start using them. In the meantime I'm doing a little goldwork sampler to figure out how to best do the gold leaves on the cuff. Fun, fun.
Well that and a couple of fruits.
The fruits are nasty and tricky though - there's lots of very fine blending of colour and they take ages to do - you can see what I mean below:
So far, 60 hours of embroidery time in total, over three weeks.
I'm really enjoying working with silk thread. It's harder and more fussy than cotton and tends to catch on every bit of dry skin I have on my hands, but it feels more "right" than cotton floss. Don't know whether that makes any sense. Also, it gives a very nice glossy finish if the satin stitch is done correctly. On the other hand, it requires much more precision for it to look right. If the stitches are a fraction of a millimetre too far or too close, the glossy effect disappears. Its a pain in the butt. Cotton is not that sensitive because it's not really glossy whatever you do with it.
The other thing I found with the silk thread is that it behaves differently according to the colour. It's a bit weird, but some colours are smoother/silkier than others, some are more likely to fluff up and some are more cotton like (such as the deep red I'm using at the moment). Don't know why.
Oh and the metal threads have been ordered. Hopefully they'll arrive just in time for me to start using them. In the meantime I'm doing a little goldwork sampler to figure out how to best do the gold leaves on the cuff. Fun, fun.