
Category: Toadstools


Death Cap
So much learnt!
Here’s a brief summary:
-
Dyed the Salamanca fabric in tea and backed it with cotton
-
Raised stem stitch band in cotton (twice)
-
Bullion knots in cotton
-
Needlelace (Single Brussels stitch) in cotton
-
Padded felt slip in wool viscose and cotton padding
-
Brick stitch in Crewel wool
-
Detached woven picot in cotton
-
Couching in cotton
-
French knots in cotton
-
Lettering in backstitch and skull in padded satin stitch in cotton.
The afterglow of successful creation. I’m basking right now.

Finishing off the mushroom
So we come to the end. I’ve skipped ahead a few steps in this post so you’ll see all the final stages.
After finishing the woven picots, all the main sections were done, and it was left to tart it up a bit. First, I couched in the cap.
I used two different colours, in groups of 4 threads, one on top, and one underneath.
Then I decided to use another of my lovely hand dyed variegated cottons in a browny, brambley colour scheme, first to couch a line to the base, tidying up the leaves and base, and then used 2 strands to do lots of french knot texture to look like soil. This worked beautifully with the varigation of the threads to give a really natural depth.
Tune in tomorrow for the final piece’s full frontal glamour shot.

Leaves
When I first saw this stitch described in the RSC Stumpwork book, I got really excited. It was really the stitch that confirmed I needed to do another toadstool just so I could employ it.
Again, when I think of traditional Stumpwork I think of fancy little things like this. Some 3-pronged detached woven picots to be precise.
I used some gorgeous hand-dyed variegated dark green cotton. They were actually super simple to make. I thought I would leave them detatched but realised they would just flop to the front so put a couple of little holding stitches in there to make them undulate. Also realised my stupid mistake of transferring the (indelible) design of the outline of these to the fabric, even though it would be exposed by the detached leaves. So I coloured it in in pencil – it becomes a shadow!
