French Knot Embroidery Tip

Poking through with my needle

Only minutes to spare (okay I passed the midnight mark so it's really Tuesday in Texas) and I'm posting my Monday night hints and tips. This is for those who would like to embroidery French knots in close quarters. Don't worry too much about missed spots to begin with. When you have the area filled you can spot where you need to add more by looking for the base fabric showing through. To further fill use your needle and poke up from the back wiggling the needle a little to find any bare spots. I always do this to get the area as filled as possible.

Happy stitching!!


Rose

I’m Here, I’m Here!

As you can see I haven’t reached my goal yet for my blog but I’m not giving up! Just having to juggle life and choices keeps me busy not to mention my grandson Jaden. I spent a couple of days this week helping a dear friend set up her Etsy account. She will be adding more items and improving her shop but you can take a look now. That was time well spent. Also spent some time waiting in doctor’s offices with my husband for follow ups on his recent hospitalization.

So here’s an update on my stitching for TAST2012.

I’ve been keeping up with the weekly stitches but I’m slow on getting them photographed and posted. So here goes!

Crossed Buttonhole Scribble Stitch

Crossed Buttonhole. I decided to stick with my scribbles and actually enjoyed doing this stitch. It took me awhile to get it right and develop a rhythm but then I was happy with it.

Half-chevron scribble stitch

Can’t say the same for the half chevron though. I was almost to the end of my scribble before I realized what I was doing wrong. I think I’ll try it again and see if I like it any better.

Bullion Stitch Scribble

And then there’s the bullion stitch. This is a stitch I first learned from by mother-in-law, Eunice Balaz, and then further expanded on it when I took some lessons in Brazilian embroidery. I really like the stitch but I haven’t used it much recently, You can view my Flickr account for older work using the bullion stitch. 

Recently I used it on my quilt guild name badge and on my February CQJ2012 block. I again decided to stitch with my scribble method and made long and short bullions along the line. The long stitches have 10 wraps and the shorter ones have 5 wraps. The thread used was a variegated pearl cotton.

Butterfly stitch scribble

Finally there’s the butterfly stitch. Oh my! I have never executed this stitch before. I think it would have worked better if I had made the straight stitches a little longer. I left my pencil scribble showing so you could see the original line I followed. I will eventually remove that line.

All of my scribbles are up on my design wall and they may make it into one cohesive piece when they are all done. I may even go back to some of the earlier stitches and do them as scribbles. We’ll see!

Thank you for taking the time to look at my work and a special hug thanks to those who leave comments!

Next I’ll show you my progress on my Crazy Quilt blocks and I plan to have another tip up on Monday. (Oh that’s tomorrow – lol – we’ll see!) I’m way behind on my 12 in 12 so I’m going to take some time to look for some simple ones to try and finish.

13. The sound of a train announcing its arrival
14. A gentle breeze blowing
15. A baby discovering his first tooth
16. Butterflies

Happy stitching!

Rose