Butterfly and glue stitch

In my previous post I mentioned our newest project with Sussex Stitchers, a series of individual pieces which will be joined together to form our new banner. Having completed my Sovereign Lighthouse I have now moved on to a butterfly.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice the imprint of an embroidery hoop around this design. It is intended to be a Chalk Hill Blue butterfly, found up on our lovely Downs, usually with the accompaniment of lark song trilling away high above in the blue blue sky. The frame imprint is evidence of Not Thinking Things Through and being in too much of a hurry. It is also evidence of unpicking (a pair of fine tweezers always helpful)! So what happened?

 

Well, we are also running a new series of our stitch support groups which we call Fly Stitchers. Steph and I gather with a small group of hopeful but not entirely confident stitchers over six sessions and, for a modest fee, encourage, teach, facilitate them in planning and working a small project from start to finish.  Our second session deals with preparing one's fabric, transferring the design and choosing stitches. As Steph, who has done a number of RSN courses, waxed lyrical at the other end of the table about the importance of mounting the fabric, especially if it is fine and you are going to use silk shading, I thought to myself, "hmmmm, you haven't done that have you?" I plan on working the wings in a sort of silk shading, though not with silk, but the fabric I am using is a very fine silk. After a brief inward wrestle with my lazy side, I was persuaded that the white wing edges I had already stitched must come out, and the fabric must be given support. I am using what Jude calls Glue Stitch for this. It is a way of mounting fabric on a backing almost invisibly, by taking a series of very tiny stitches on the surface in a thread which tones with your background, using longer stitches on the back. This brings the two pieces of fabric together as one, and can be left in place once the stitching is complete.

Above you can see the path of the stitching on the back of the fabric - a fine calico. Below you can see the front of the fabric and, if you look very closely, you will see below the bottom wings a series of tiny little stitches, which almost disappear. Go back to the top image and you will note that they really are pretty well invisible, they have been worked from top to bottom and only those on the very bottom show,  a tiny bit.

Thank you Jude for your stitching wisdom and inspiration. Now to reinstate those wing edges and the rest of the design can proceed .......