14th century inspired pattern worked in surface couching .10 – main pattern framework finished

And finally, after all the recent postings about my progress, I am glad to say that I just managed to finish the main framework pattern of my 14th century inspired pattern worked in surface couching! 😀

But I wasn’t embroidering all the time – actually, after all the countless hours which I spent working at my current projects last week, I took a brake from my embroidery projects this weekend.

Retrospective I can say that nothing works better to recharge my batteries than a nice shire get-together with grilling on Saturday and a relaxing Sunday filled with fishing and gaming with my husband and good friends. We were out fishing several times before but this was the first time that we actually brought some fish home for dinner! 😀

But the good time didn’t end on sunday – yesterday my sweetheart surprised me with a lovely card and gift. And we celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary with a good dinner at our favorite restaurant! Can you imagine it – regardless how busy this restaurant is, we always get the same table every time we eat there…

It was kinda funny though – as soon as we went through the door and the lady at the entrance wanted to guide us to our table, I asked her if we could get our usual table and pointed at it. And she replied that this was actually the table she had for us… It seems like this table really likes us! *lol* 😉

But enough about my life and back again to my embroidery. I might have taken 3 days off to give my hands and fingers some rest but besides this short break I was really busy working at my projects, as my husband can testify. The framework of the 14th century pattern is complete now and looks – if I may say so – amazing!

And I took several nice progress pictures of the embroidery progress for you – enjoy! 😀

At the picture above you can see the middle detail of the 14th century pattern framework after the first round of surface couching.

And at the picture underneath you can see the left half of the pattern with just one line of surface couching and the right side with the final two lines of surface couching. I took this picture to outline to you how the use of one or two lines of silver thread worked in surface couching can influence the overall appearance of your pattern.

Just one line worked in surface couching looks very fine and delicate but can make it a little bit difficult for the eye to see the pattern at the very first glimpse. Though working with two lines of surface couching might let the embroidery lose its delicateness and add some bulkiness to it, it makes it much easier for the eye to recognize the pattern from a distance…

To give you a better idea of what I mean, I took the following picture with the middle detail just half finished (with only one line of surface couching) for you:

Can you see it? The embroidery in the middle appears quite delicate but all the pattern parts worked with two lines of surface couching are much more visible and quite dominant.

But don’t worry – there is actually no definite or right answer to the question of how many lines of surface couching is right for your own project. It always depends on your personal taste, the size of your project and the overall pattern as well as the effect you want to achieve. Therefore please feel free to play with the amount of lines worked in surface couching you are working with. 🙂

…and now let’s take a look at the finished framework embroidery for my 14th century pattern and how the middle detail looks like with the second line of surface couching added: 

It’s lovely, isn’t it! 😀

…and now let’s take a closer look at the finished embroidery of the middle detail:

…and here a picture of the same detail of my pattern taken from a slightly different angle:

 Btw. – while I was working at this embroidery, I spotted a small irregularity in the fabric. A small piece of thread was peeking out of the fabric:

You might discover a problem like this from time to time. Sometimes with new fabrics made from natural fibers like silk or linen or with finished projects because the fabric of your dress/tunic/… caught on to something pointy.

First rule in this case:
Don’t take your scissors and don’t cut it off!

No, you don’t want to do this! Or, well, actually you might want to do it but I really advise not to do it! Why? Well, as soon as you cut it off, you actually shorten the thread/fiber and as soon as the fabric gets moved and stretched, the end of this shortened thread could free itself again and show up next to the spot where you just cut it off.

Instead of using your scissors the best thing you can actually do in this case is to take one of your slightly bigger needles and try to pull the thread to the backside of your fabric:

I admit it – sometimes it can be quite a task to catch this small threads but it’s definitely a better solution than to simply cut them off. Btw. it’s nearly impossible that this thread ever makes it back to the surface once I got it to the backside and embroidered over it. 🙂

At the next picture you can see how the surface of my silk fabric looked like after I pulled the thread to the backside:

Now, that the thread on the surface was gone, I could continue with my surface couching embroidery… 🙂

I hope you enjoyed my new progress pictures of the finished framework of my 14th century pattern worked in surface couching. And in my next posting I can already show you the very first progress of the appliqué work on the white 14th century XL hood for my friends Pelican elevation. 😀