Italian Corded Quilting

 This piece is done in Italian corded quilting. A decorative form of quilting commonly used to for Celtic knot work. Two pieces of cloth are quilted together and a raised design is made by threading cords between the lines of quilting. I sewed this piece for the design for embroidery course that I am taking from the Embroidery Association of Canada. The piece measures 6 inches from one side to the other. It is made with natural linen cloth for the front and white cotton for the back. The quilting was done with DMC flower thread and candle wicking cotton used for the cording. I was a little disappointed how plain the piece looked when I was finished with it.  I still think that it would make a nice hot pad in the kitchen.

This type of work is sewed on the backside so the pattern is copied on the back piece of fabric. In this design it makes no difference but the design will be reversed on the front side.  I tried to copy the pattern using my water-soluble pen. It finally ran out of ink after having it forever. I use it so often. I need to replace it as soon as possible. I settled for a pencil to draw the picture on the piece of cloth. This is not a good practice especially with such light color fabric and thread. The color can rub off on the thread most of it washes out easily afterwards. 

The two pieces of cloth are basted together to hold them in place while the stitching is done. Running stitch is sewn along all the lines. It’s important to make sure the line stay as straight as possible and an even width apart so that the cord fits evenly.  The pictures above show the order that I quilted the lines in. The picture below is the finished quilting.

Below shows the candle wicking cotton being threaded between the two lines of quilting. I started with 6 strands which barely showed on the surface and kept increasing them until I was using 10 strands. It is important when turning the corners to leave a little extra thread to keep the corners from losing their shape. The finished piece is shown at the top.