Or at any rate, I think it’s solved. Take a look at the picture below – does that look straight to you? I hope it does. It didn’t before, or not to me. I tried to ignore it, and to tell myself that it would look fine to everyone else, I was just too close,…
I haven’t mentioned the banner for a while, as I’m just doing things I’ve already described when I did the first one, but the second one is coming along fine. Here’s where I’ve got up to: So, I’ve got the appliqué done on two legs, so two to go plus the sequins and gold kid…
A stunning example of goldwork in (fairly) contemporary ecclesiastical embroidery can be seen in All Saint’s Chapel in York Minster. This magnificent dossal (or hanging behind an altar) was made in 1972 by the Minster Broderers, from a design by Joan Freeman. On red silk, the design is worked in padded gold kid and couched…
In the last post, I described basic goldwork couching. These two pieces, Dodecahedron I and Dodecahedron II, were both made using exactly that technique. Dodecahedron I, the small gold one, is a geometrical solid with 12 five-sided faces, and is about the size of a tennis ball. For each one, I cut out a pentagon…
As I’m working on the second cross, this seems like good time to look at the basic goldwork technique: couching. Couching is very simple – it’s simply laying one thread on the surface of your fabric, and using a second thread to stitch it down. This can of course be done with any sort of…
I’ve finished the first cross! More detailing still had to be added after the appliqué was finished; on Fiona’s design, there are some small red discs. These were coloured the same as the detail I’ve done as appliqué, which would imply working them in the same way, but I felt that I’d already reached the…
The appliqué detail on the first cross is now all done – and here it is: So that’s all the satin pieces attached, and edged with Jap gold thread. Some of them more than once – it’s taken longer than I’d expected to get this far, as I wasn’t happy with what I’d done on…
The cross is coming along – I’ve got the appliqué done on two of the legs now. As I’m concentrating a lot on the appliqué at the moment, I thought you might be interested to see some other pieces I’ve made using the same technique. These cushions show the Chinese characters for ‘Friendship’, ‘Eternity’, and…
I’m now working on appliqué detail down the legs of the cross. This is in exactly the same fabric and technique as described previously, so I won’t go over it all again. Here’s how the completed first leg looks, anyway: Mary Corbet suggested a different technique for the appliqué shapes, and I’d been considering having…
Much of the detail on the red velvet cross is going to be in appliqué. I’m using red silk satin, in as close a match to the red of the velvet as possible. The idea is to have the same colour but a contrast in textures, though as the apparent colour of the velvet can…