Goldwork Ornament

 Just one last ornament for this year. It's definitely my favourite one I made this season. I wanted to try making a piece with metallic threads. It is common to use velvet as a background and I haven't tried embroidery on velvet before but I had a nice sized piece of it. I started planning a much larger piece. Then wanted to try something smaller first to see how it worked out. I started with an old medieval design.

I used illustrator to copy the design. I found that once I made the lines wide enough I could see the design through the lightboard. The water soluble fabric pen was easy to draw with and showed up on the velvet. I had to simplified it some and changed it a little more as I went along so it would work better with the metallic threads. 

  I used a yellow cotton thread to couch down the metallic thread. I followed around the outlines first. I made a wheel for the circle in the center. Above the center I made three lines instead of following the outline. When I got to the flowers I decided to change to take out all the rest of the circles to simplify the design even more. Instead I looped the thread around so they crossed over in the middle. This still gave a solid look to the  center and I could use a continuous piece of thread to make the flower. 

To assemble the ornament I trimmed the edges of the embroidery into an oval. I cut out an oval cardboard for the center and felt oval for the back. I laced the velvet over the piece of cardboard to snug it up tight. I sewed a metallic thread through the center of the top to hang it from. Then I backed the piece by sewing on the felt oval.

Wool Blanket

I tried to find a nice warm wool blanket this winter. The prices I found were far more than I could afford. I came a crossed a large piece of thick wool fabric. It was a pink gingham pattern that already almost looked like a blanket. It was large and heavy enough to be a blanket but had raw edges at both ends. I decided to finish it off into a blanket and decorate it. This worked out much better. I got a very nice blanket now that is new and personalized. The stitches are all large and pretty simple so it was surprisingly quick for such a large piece.

The left picture shows how I finished the top edge of the blanket. I used a 1/2 inch blanket stitch along the top to cover the folded edge. Also showing where I hid the thread ends from the top inside the hem. The right picture shows where I hid the thread ends in the side of the blanket. The material was thick enough I could bury the thread inside the edge. Securing it more as I stitched over top of it. I used a smaller 1/4 inch blanket stitch along the side edges to cover the selvage and stop the material from stretching out of shape.

For the first row along the top I used a crown stitch. The crown stitch is done by making three straight stitches. The one in the middle is long and straight the two on the sides are at an angle and go in through the same hole as the first stitch. A fly stitch is made at the top passing under all three stitches.

For the next two rows I used a knot stitch or four legged knot stitch. Then a second row of crown stitches. The knot stitch looks like an upright cross stitch with a little knot in the center of it. Start with a straight stitch just like starting an upright cross stitch. Come through again on the right side slide under the upright stitch. Wrap the thread around to make a loop and pass through the loop. Go back through the fabric to the left finishing the stitch. Someday I may add more embroidery later. The more stitches the thicker and warmer the blanket will be.