Today I’m Making… Embroidered roses with beads

You might remember the lovely workshop I did a while back where I made the scissor dangle thing? Well, I really liked making the bullion knot roses so when I finished that my head was full of ideas of images I could embroider filling in with hundreds of bullion knot roses and french knots.

Finally I have made something. I had to come up with a birthday present for someone I don’t know brilliantly well but I didn’t want to just buy a scented candle like I usually would, I wanted to make something. Fingers crossed she’ll appreciate it took up most of my weekend making it and I’m not just being cheap.  I found the picture frame in TK Maxx, they always have gorgeous frames in there and the prices are very good.  This one I think is supposed to look like a vintage plate that has been made into a frame.

I had intended to use the gorgeous De Havilland silks I bought at Ally Pally but in the first place I could only find one hank in the wrong colour and then it didn’t work for making the roses, it all just tangled up hideously and I had to cut it out.

In the end I went for ordinary DMC in three colours – red, maroon and hot pink. I think another time I’d go for a variegated thread because it gives a better result than a block colour for flowers, but I did use a variegated coral for the french knots and that worked out really well.

I started off by couching a double row of metallic blue thread, then I sewed the line of beads on individually, I did think about stringing them on to a thread and couching those on too but I prefer to sew them on one by one. After that I couched on another double row of metallic blue.  If I were to make another one of these I think I’d do this outside edge last because I was worried I’d catch the blue thread and ruin it as I made the roses.

The fabric I was sewing on to is white with a white floral print which was handy to use as a random template to fill with the roses, rose buds and leaves. Making something look random is really hard, I think I have a roughly even colour distribution of roses and buds but I hope it doesn’t look too much like it is.

Here it is, the finished thing all mounted up. The mounting is the part that causes me the most stress but it seems to have worked out OK and I haven’t smashed any of the glass beads under the glass.

I wanted this to have a vintage look, as if it had been upcycled from a 50’s boudoir set. I think that has worked out quite well personally. Though now that I’ve made this I realise my ideas about embroidering shapes filled in with bullion knot roses was a bit ambitious, I don’t think I could bear it, but it has reminded me how much I like doing french knots so I’ll be doing a lot more of those.

 

Today I’m Making – Scissor Keeper dangle thing

I know I must have said it half a dozen times already but I do love a workshop.  They’re the main reason I go to craft shows.  Last October at the Knitting and Stitching Show, Ally Pally I signed up for Kathleen Laurel Sage’s workshop to learn to embroider bullion knot roses. What attracted me was their lovely vintage look, they make me think of boudoir sets, they also look fiercely difficult and I think there was even something in the blurb about them being intimidating so that was me in. Here is the front page of the kit so you know what we were aiming for.

 

I am getting back into hand sewing rather than just knitting and crocheting, its the think I love most and I’ve been avoiding it because it makes me too upset to think I’m not doing it for a living any more, but then again not doing it is probably making me miserable so this is one of my attempts to recover my old skills.  So there we all were, a nice mixed bunch as usual at these things. Really good kits all ready and waiting, the strong colours were all snapped up pretty fast which left me with the creamy peachy tone that I wanted anyway. Result.  The kit was really good, plenty of everything so you can do more practice or start something else off when you’ve finished this one or even unpick and start again if you make a horrible pig’s ear of it.

Kathleen Laurel Sage is easily one of the best workshop tutors I’ve come across, she got us all whipping them out with barely any fuss at all. I fell in love with what looks like a tricky technique straight away, she also was full of ideas for other uses and brought fantastic examples of things she’d made that were embellished with bullion knot roses.  She had this gorgeous little box that I’m sure all of us wanted to ask her to sell to us.

Turns out they’re not too hard to do. So here’s mine. I love it. Really do love it and my head is full of things I want to embroider using bullion knots and French knots now.

Its a bit wonkily off centre but its my first go.

I’ve already attached it to my scissors but I think it will get on my wick so if anyone can suggest another use for it I’d be glad to hear it.

I think I chose the wrong shade of green for the leaves, mine are a bit on the dark side but then rose leaves are glossily dark aren’t they? I’m not an outdoorsy person so I could be wrong…

The kit suggests a beaded loop or ribbon, I prefer ribbon I think the beaded loops look a bit scruffy.

I sewed a button on the back to hid the ends of the ribbon and to give it a bit of weight on the back so it hangs nicely.

The kit version has beads on the front too but I love French knots so I just went a bit mad with those instead.

Kathleen has a website but she doesn’t seem to be selling these kits but maybe if you emailed her she could rustle one up for you. http://www.kathleenlaurelsage.com/misc.html