Having previously posted about the SAL Aurelia
at Eglantine Stitchery was (and still is) hosting, I had intended to be more
pro-active and post updates about my progress, in addition to taking an
interest in how the other SAL
participants were getting along.
During the first day or two of the SAL, I
had got rather carried away and stitched almost half of my bookmark. Not
wanting to finish so far ahead of the deadline, I took some photographs and put
it to one side. In my mind, if the bookmark was completed within the first few
days, it would seem a little like cheating, and as though I wasn’t entering
into the spirit of the SAL.
By the time I should have been thinking about working on the bookmark, I
had completely forgotten that the deadline was June 20th, and had
got it in my mind that it was the last day of June. Unfortunately, when I
realised I’d got it wrong, something happened that resulted in me feeling
extremely lethargic and despondent. It’s a long story and although it’s one I
am willing to share, I do not feel it is for the likes of this post, or indeed this
stitching-themed blog.
After contacting Aurelia at the beginning of last week to inform her
that I didn’t think my bookmark was going to be finished in time, I felt a
sense of relief when she responded with the news that the deadline had been
extended to July 1st. Although I still wasn’t feeling great, I
decided on Tuesday to at least try and make an effort to finish the bookmark,
and thankfully it paid off, as you will see. Yes, I’ve actually managed to
complete the bookmark! However, before the Ta
Dah! bit where you hear a drum roll on cue, and get to see am image of the
finished bookmark, I need to go back to the beginning.
Part
1
Shortly after I had commenced stitching the bookmark (the colour
version), using two strands of thread, I had found myself thinking that the
four Algerian crosses in the centre might be better stitched with one strand
instead. Also, because I had made my mind up that I wanted to incorporate seed
beads, the addition of a yellow bead at the centre of the pink flowers could
look quite effective. As luck would have it, I happened to have some yellow DMC
seed beads that I had purchased about 10 years ago for a birth sampler, which
can be seen at the bottom of my Gallery
page. Unfortunately, the image is too small to see where the seed beads were
used. Anyway, having located the seed beads, I felt the shade of yellow clashed
too greatly with the yellow DMC
thread. I sought the opinion of my good-eye-for-colour mother, who said she
thought they looked fine and that the clash really wasn’t as noticeable as I
was making out. Having looked online and been unsuccessful in finding any seed
beads that were a better match; I decided to stick with the yellow DMC
beads.
Before the bookmark had been put aside, I had taken it with me on a
visit to HobbyCraft at Webbs of Wychbold. Aside from wanting to
purchase some backing fabric, I also wanted to see if I could find any other
colours of seed beads that could be worked into the design. My idea had been to
add seed beads to the centres of the basic diamonds either side of the Rhodes
Lozenges, but as I couldn’t find any to match the shade of DMC
pink thread, I scrapped the idea. What I found instead were some seed beads
that were a good match for the lighter green thread (Gutermänn
size 11/0 Rocailles – colour 8430). For the backing fabric, I had already made
my mind up that I would use white felt, which gave me a good excuse to buy the
sparkly felt I had seen during a previous visit.
Part
2
Shortly before I resumed stitching, I received the revised PDF from Aurelia,
and quickly realised that my Rhodes Lozenges weren’t quite right. When I had printed
off the original PDF, what I saw looked something like the image below. For the
record, I would like to point out that this had nothing to do with the quality
of the images in the PDF, because they displayed perfectly on my monitor.
I unpicked and re-did the Rhodes Lozenges, and then proceeded to
complete the rest of the stitching. I should add that I also unpicked the four
Algerian crosses that I had stitched with one strand, and re-did them with two
strands. After studying my handiwork, I decided that I want to add some
sparkle, but because I didn’t want to take the focus away from the beauty of
Aurelia’s Spring Garden design, I
knew it would have to be subtle. DMC
E5200 (from the Light Effects
metallic range) struck me as the perfect shade to use because it would blend in
with the white Aida, but add sparkle when it caught the light. In addition, it
would tie in with the white sparkly felt. Using one strand, I backstitched a
border three stitches out from the main part of the design.
The next stage was the one I had been dreading; stitching the Aida to
the felt backing. Rather than using the ‘invisible’ stitch method (also known
as hammer stitch), I could have used an alternative method, but decided it
would not be a bad thing to at least try to master the ‘invisible’ stitch
method. Using the wonderful Bookmark Finishing Tutorial Aurelia had thoughtfully posted on her blog, I set to
work. I won’t deny that I did find it incredibly tedious, especially when it
came to the final few stitches.
As you will see on the photographs below, I added a tassel of sorts. For
the twisted cord section, I used 18 strands of DMC
B5200, which were far longer than they needed to be, but better to be too long
than too short. I referred to this
step-by-step pictorial presentation. Rather than ending up with a tassel like
the one in the image below, I thought I would try something a bit different. I
had no idea if I could successfully pull off the idea I’d got in my mind, so it
was a risk.
 |
| A typical bookmark tassel |
 | ||
| Bookmark with twisted cord |
The first thing I did was to place a knot further up the cord, and then
cut the cord just above the original main knot that had been placed after I had
finished twisting the cord. What I wanted to do was add a 14mm Swarovski Twist Bead that I had
purchased online from The Bead Shop, using
silver metallic thread (from the DMC
Metallics range). Why silver thread? Well, given that the transparency of the bead,
I felt silver would look better threaded through the bead than white. The idea
was that instead of a tassel at the end of the cord, I would have the bead. After
discussing my idea with my son, his opinion was that whilst silver thread would
definitely look better threaded through the bead, there needed to be a (white) tassel
too. As I couldn’t think of a simple way to do this, I decided to scrap the
idea of using silver thread.
 | |
| Swarovski Twist Bead |
As you may be able to see from the photo, I threaded the white strands
of thread through the bead. It was not an easy task to thread 36 strands
through the bead, and after I had got about halfway, I had to use a pair of
pliers. I managed to thread all but three strands through the needle, which I
think is pretty good going. Oh, I also ended up with two completely bent
needles, one of which snapped as I was trying to pull it through the bead with
the pliers. With so many strands of thread passing through the bead, it was
definitely secure and going nowhere, but to err on the side of caution I
knotted some thread just below the bead. On the topic of tassels, there is a
wonderful post on Eglantine Stitchery,
which you can read here.
 |
| Tassel with Swarovski bead |
 |
| Front of bookmark |
 |
| Back of bookmark |
If you clicked on the photos to view them full-size, you may have noticed that despite re-doing the Rhodes Lozenges, I still hadn't got them quite right. It wasn't until after I had stitched the front and back panels together that I noticed my faux pas, and there was absolutely no way I was going to unpick the invisible stitching in order to rectify my mistakes. As I was consistent with my blunder (both Rhodes Lozenges look the same), I feel it's a blunder I can get away with.
 |
| Oops! |
