Monday 13 August 2007

TAST French Knots

Ok, so I have only been working on this in my 'spare' time, but it has taken me four weeks to complete this TAST! I think this is something of a break through for me. Gone are the neat lines of carefully planned stitches. Although I had a vague idea of how I wanted this to look, I have really felt my way and let the needle guide me and I feel somewhat liberated by it.


I began with a piece of muslin and made running stitches across it lengthwise with DMC Perle cotton. I then gathered the muslin to fit a pre-marked area on felt. Using the 'tails' from the gathering threads, I attached the muslin to the felt using French Knots. I then spread or bunched the gathers in a random manner and began filling the flat areas with French Knots.

I kept selecting threads and adding knots where it felt right and kept going until it felt finished.

Happy Stitching

9 comments:

Elizabeth said...

This piece is an absolute delight! Very refreshing. I'm so glad you kept going until you felt it was finished. Thanks for posting.

Margaret said...

What a beautiful piece. I love this kind of surprise piece where it looks like patches of colour from a distance and then close up you see the individual stitches. Well worth the effort and the muslin pulling is a nice technique.

JoWynn Johns said...

What a lovely piece! It looks liberated! And I'm going to try your idea of pulling the muslin. This is super.

gaylenona said...

What an original idea! You have definitely got something here. The pulled and textured muslin has a wonderful effect.

NormaH said...

At first glance I thought you had worked the French Knots on pleated fabric like you would for smocking. But I like what you did even better than smocking. The more I read the more I felt your "freedom". This looks like something I need to try. Thanks for a beautiful wholesome piece.

die-fadenwerkstatt said...

I love your piece. It makes me think of summer!

Conni said...

Fantastic!!!

coral-seas said...

Thank you so much for your comments. It is never easy to do something outside of your comfort zone. The enjoyment I got from doing this piece has encouraged me to try something like this again and your comments have boosted my confidence to do so.

CA

Fiona said...

this looks wonderful! great technique.