Well, Well, Well,

It’s Monday night and I have a tip for you. Well that is if you are doing French knots. Talking embroidery here.

I frequently use a lap pillow when I’m doing handwork to support my hands and wrists. 

Lap Pillow for Handwork

But when I started doing the daily Stitch Meditations I grabbed one of my small block/applique holders to contain the small pieces I was working with. These holders are just made from the purple insulation boards or foam-core boards that are then covered with either batting, felt, or flannel. I made these many years ago when my son helped me put up my design walls. We have small pieces of the purple board left over so I covered them and used duct tape (the fancier kind) to hold the fabric down and to neaten up the edges of the boards. 

Boards

You can see I have several sizes.

So one day while I was using the smaller one, I started making French knots and just happened to stick my needle into the board. The board held the needle while I tightened up my thread before I pulled the needle and thread all the way through. I found that I could even lift the knot and fabric up to the top of the needle before removing it from the board. This made for some much neater knots and more consistent knots.

Needle stuck in board while making French Knot

Pulling the thread taut for the knot

Knot ready to be finished

The finished knot:

Completed French Knot

Now if you are wanting the looser, sloppier knots this probably won’t help much. But I’ve found myself using this method more and more. I may even modify the pillow pattern to put a pocket on the bottom to hold the small board so I have it when I stitch other places than home.

And that’s my tip for today. I’m not sure I will have a new tip every Monday (some of them may seem a little far-fetched I guess) but you can always search my blog for some of my older ones.

Happy French knots!

Rose