Tag: Couching

Death Cap
Posted by Mother Eagle on in Crewel, Embroidery, Learning, My Work, Stumpwork, Toadstools

Death Cap

So much learnt!

Here’s a brief summary:

  1. Dyed the Salamanca fabric in tea and backed it with cotton

  2. Raised stem stitch band in cotton (twice)

  3. Bullion knots in cotton

  4. Needlelace (Single Brussels stitch) in cotton

  5. Padded felt slip in wool viscose and cotton padding

  6. Brick stitch in Crewel wool

  7. Detached woven picot in cotton

  8. Couching in cotton

  9. French knots in cotton

  10. 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
Posted by Mother Eagle on in Couching, Embroidery, French knot, Learning, My Work, Toadstools, Work in Progress

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.

Toadstool Progress
Posted by Mother Eagle on in Embroidery, Learning, My Work, Toadstools, Work in Progress

Toadstool Progress


So more Satin stitch and Long and short stitch. The spots are what I’m most happy with. A very successful experiment with a stitch I found in my fave Anchor stitch book – Spider’s Web Filling. Basically I’ve made a 2-ply thread from 2 different shades of cotton for the ‘spokes’ of the web which make the base, and I tried to make the centre point match the original photo – so not all actually in the centre. Then using a lighter shade for the centre bit I wove in and out of the spokes, then switched to a slightly darker tone for the outside. I couched all the edges in with the dark mushroom colour in single strand back stitch, and where I felt like it was a bit ‘flat’ I’ve added a few more spokes on top in the same colour. Quite labour intensive, but I love how it’s turned out.