On November 12th, I finished stitching my Ocean runners for the stairs in my dollhouse. That same day I mounted the gauze and began stitching my new project. I decided to stitch my Denise rug as I was looking forward to stitching something with lots of pattern after the monotony of stitching the runners for so long. This project is being stitched on 48 count gauze and will be the first time I have used this count. Below is a photo of my progress to date. I began my stitching in the bottom left corner as I am left-handed and find this to be an easy place to start for me. I worked across the bottom to fill in the outer border, then worked upwards along the left. I have not completely finished the first border on the left side because I want to work a bit on the next border. The reason I do this is so that I can check my pattern count to make sure I haven't accidentally mis-counted any of it. I find that I can get my borders placed more accurately if I work this way and not try to complete the entire outer border. If I work just the outer border and am off by even one stitch, the border won't line up when I get around the perimeter back to the bottom. Once I have placed the left side and bottom outer borders, I like to work the inner borders across and up until I reach the edges of them. This helps me place the outer top and right borders more accurately. You will see my progression of this more accurately as I post more progress photos.
You will see at the bottom of the photo, that I have a bunch of lines on the inner edge of my frame. I did this because I hadn't worked with 48 count before and wanted a visual reference to show me every 10 stitches across. It helped me to count out the bottom border. I worked the black line almost to the end of the little lines then began to fill in the shapes until I got to the far right corner. I will begin working my way up the right side once I am sure I have counted correctly. Rather than end off a thread that I will still be using, I "park" it by going down through the gauze away from the stitching then back up again. I will pick up each thread again as I need it. You may also notice near the bottom right corner in the red stitched section, that there is a shadow of red in the unstitched area. This is because I stitched the last bottom motif, then found out that I had mis-counted by one stitch when I got to the corner. I had to remove the stitches and begin again. It is so easy to make this kind of error and even very experienced stitchers do it from time to time. I usually find the mistake before I have gone too far then fix it before I have a chance to make more mistakes based on the first one.
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I have now finished filling in the different blues in the center motifs and was able to begin the background white. You can see a tiny bit done in the bottom left corner.
I have decided to do the background using Tent Stitch (also known as Continental Stitch) and work my way to fill each little section as bordered by motifs and lines. This way, I won't be crossing over the motifs or lines. Also, if I complete a small section, I will feel like I accomplished more than if I stitch all the way across the whole width of the center. (This is purely a psychological response but goes a long way toward keeping me interested and engaged in a project! 😉 ) Using this method of filling in sections, the finished rug won't be as thick as it would if I traveled across motifs and lines, and I will have the added bonus of using less floss, thus having to re-thread the needle less often. I find that silk gauze is very hard on DMC thread and I can only use shorter lengths when stitching, or the floss will fray and break. The longest I have been able to use at one time is about 19" - 20". Today, I thought I would post some photos of the back of my stair runners. Since the runners will be approximately 20" long, I must move the fabric down as I complete the areas within the frame. When I move the fabric down, I take care to put thumbtacks between the two runners and on the outer edges of the fabric. This way, I don't distort the stitches that I have already completed. When stitching, I also tuck the extra, already stitched fabric up behind with thumb tacks so that it doesn't fray or get dirty.
This week I wanted to show you the progress I have made on the Ocean Runner and how I am moving the project down the frame as I finish each section.
Last night, I finally reached the top of the frame (for the most part) and decided to move the fabric down in order to work the next section. This photo shows how it looks now that I have moved it down. On the reverse side, I have not put my thumbtacks all the way across the bottom, only in the extreme corners and the center where there is no stitching. This is so that the tacks do not pull the stitching out of shape or make a hole in the stitching. You may see that there are three holes in the fabric near the top of the frame. These are just areas where the strands of fabric were pulled out of shape but is not torn. I simply move the strands back into place and the hole virtually disappears. There are three other holes near the needle that I have moved the strands around and they are almost gone. Once I stitch over them, you won't be able to see them anymore. I am enjoying how quickly this project is stitching up as it doesn't take long to see more pattern emerge or to fill it in. Most likely, I will continue with this one for a while before I return to my Sonja rug. Filling in the background of the middle border is progressing well at the moment. As stated in my previous post, I am using Basketweave stitch to fill it in. To see a very good description of basketweave stitch, check this link: www.needlepointteacher.com/stitches/numbered-a-b/basketweave/
I found this website to be very good for explaining the many types of stitches found in needlepoint. Petitpoint (which I am doing) is often made up of the same stitches but primarily Tent (sometimes referred to as Continental) and Basketweave. One of the other petitpoint stitchers I know sometimes uses a full cross stitch to highlight single stitches of a color, which I may do for the single stitches of dark blue that you can see in the inner and outer borders. I haven't fully decided yet what I will do. For now, I will continue to fill in the background... I wanted to take a little bit of time tonight to show you how I have been stitching the outlines of my motifs on the Sonja rug. This rug has a white background so I can't have any dark colors cross under the light colors. Therefore, when I am stitching my outlines and lines of the patterns in this rug, I have been running my thread back under the stitches of the same color when I come to the end of a swirl and still have more to stitch somewhere else. The photo below shows me running the thread under the stitches to get to the next area I have to stitch. The next area I have to stitch is starting about halfway down the small vertical section of the swirl. The only places I have allowed the thread to travel over an un-stitched area is when I know the color going there is darker. This is the back of the rug.
I am always surprised (but shouldn't be) at the length of time it takes to stitch a petitpoint project. I started this rug on November 27th, 2019 so it is almost 2 months so far. Here is my progress picture as of yesterday. I have been spending quite a bit of time working up the left side of the rug. I wanted to get to the top corner so that I could rough in the top of the border. I like to make sure all of my edges match, so I often work from corner to corner and leave sections open until I reach an easier area to count. The worst thing to do (which I have done) is to work a row around the entire border then find out you mis-counted by one stitch! After having done that once, I now work towards the end of the border a bit at a time.
Some people like to work from the center outwards and I used to do that all the time. For some reason, I have switched and now like to work from one corner to another. I just measure on the frame and put a little pencil mark where the edges should go. This way, I know I will have enough fabric to stitch the rug without running out. If I am off center by a stitch (or few), it doesn't matter since I make sure the pattern will fit within the area I am using. For the most part, I am now caught up with my last year of stitching and designing so I won't be putting up posts as often, but plan on posting at least once a week to show my progress on each design as I stitch it and will post anytime I have a new rug design to show you. I hope you will continue along this journey with me and will enjoy reading along as I journal about my fun with stitching. If you purchase one of my designs and would like to post a picture of your project when you finish it, please email me at [email protected] and I would love to post a picture in our Gallery along with credit to you for stitching it. After my first granddaughter was born in January 2019, I designed a little rug that I named after her. I decided it would be perfect for a nursery and began stitching it in July 2019 as a little project that fit perfectly onto a piece of leftover gauze that I had. It stitched up quite quickly and was a great small project to do. You may notice that the background is being stitched on a diagonal. I used the basketweave stitch (which is done on a diagonal) because it is supposed to help keep the rug square if you use different stitches. I used the tent stitch on the border to be my different stitch. When the background is a solid color this works. However, if the background is going to be done in an overdyed floss (as I used in my Heather rug), you must do the background in the tent stitch so that the "abrash" effect works properly.
I wish to take this moment to wish a Happy New Year to everyone as we say goodbye to this year and usher in a new decade. This past year has been a very exciting one for myself and family and I hope to enjoy many years of stitching and miniatures. Hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful 2020! Once I finished the main stitching on the rug, I turned my attention to the fringe. Here is a closeup of the beginning of the fringe with the Tabby Weave already stitched. I placed the stitches past the edge of the rug by two stitches to leave room for finishing the edge of the rug. After the fringe is finished on both sides, I take the rug off of the frame and block it. I will discuss blocking in a future post as I have a good picture that will show it well. Below is a photo of my finished Heather rug. In this photo, you can see the "Abrash" effect very well. It is my first time using an overdyed thread and I am very pleased with the results.
This rug was named after one of my daughters and she loved it when she saw it. She has asked me to make it again life-sized as a hooked rug but I am not sure I will have the patience to hook a rug in this pattern. Only time will tell... |
AuthorMy name is Yvette, and I will be writing this blog to tell you about the creative process that has gone into the creation of my Petitpoint patterns along with showing the stitching I have done of some of the rugs. Archives
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