Monograms for ABrowns Designs

Needle Monogram

This week I have been working on a symbol for ABrowns Designs. I wanted some I could stitch as monograms. So I could take pictures of them and choose one to use as the icon on the blog. I also wanted ones that were easy to draw so that I could possibly use one for a logo too. On the left side is my favourite one of all of them. The needle makes up one side of the A and the thread curls around to make a capital A with a small b beside it. I started by sketching out several designs and came up with two that I could fairly easily draw and stitch up. The design is very simple in the first sketches and both are made so they could be worked in one continuous line with the same thread. The next set is more advanced. After I came up with the idea to make the first slash of the A into a needle.




Needle Sketches

AB_Sketches





AB Couching



AB_Running Stitch
 



I tried curly AB in a running stitch first. It worked well on such a small scale and I think it could make a nice mark for signing a piece of needle work. Next I tried it larger and used a zig zag couching stitch. Both of these designs are done in cotton floss were very quick to work up.  

On the final piece for the needle I used a mixture of two strands of rayon thread and a strand of mettallic silver. The metallic thread on it's own was much too shiny to look like a needle. When I mixed it with a grey cotton it didn't have enough shine and the


Raised Stitches

metallic thread didn't blend well. The rayon thread is glossier and the metallic didn't out stand as much just added a little sparkle. I made a base of back stitches as shown in the picture on the right to give the needle a raised look. I used two strands for the outer edge and the eye of the needle.  Then four strands down the center so that it would have a curved look. The top stitches for the needle come through and entered just below the edge of base layer so the thread wraps around creating more of a curve. For the purple thread I used a stem stitch from six strands of cotton floss. Please comment and let me know which of the three finished monograms you like best the needle, the running stitch or the couching stitch?