Comfort Doll

Way back in January, Melissa blogged about this Paisley Heart designed by Robin Kingsley and offered as a freebie on Bird Brain Designs. I’ve seen several lovely versions embroidered in different ways including Melissa’s. Her husband, Gerard, layered fabrics and learnt several embroidery stitches for his; Grandma Ziki used it in a CQ block; Charlene stitched hers on sheer silk and Leslie stitched hers in Brazilian Embroidery Stitches. I have long since wanted to do this heart with some Rajmahal Art Silk that I had left over from a project I stitched about 10 years ago. The 9 colours I have are jewel bright and the threads are very lustrous but I remember I found them rather challenging to work with.

A couple of months ago, Pat Winter made an open request for comfort dolls for abused women. This is a project that I really want to contribute to but back in June I was a little over loaded with things to do. Although as much of my stitching time as possible is going into Flutterbys, I like to have another project for the evenings when the light is not good enough and my eyes are tired from working on a computer all day. When I finally completed my TAST french knot sampler, I decided to make a start on a doll. Robin Kingsley kindly gave me permission to adapt the Paisley Heart design for the doll.

This is what I have done so far.



The leaves and petals are satin stitched with two strands of Art Silk. I still find this thread challenging but some of the things I have learnt from Japanese Embroidery have helped, like half hitching the slipper viscous threads in the needle so they don't keep coming unthreaded.

The center of the flower is done in Spiral Trellis Stitch which I learnt about from The Emboiderer's Story, a blog about another great project, recreating a 17th century embroidered jacket, if this were in Plymouth UK instead of Plymouth USA, I'd definitely want to be involved in this. Anyway, I think the stitching should lay flat on the fabric but mine rises in a cone shape, probably because I did not decrease the number of stitches enough. I used the Art Silk but this time I twisted six strands (3+3) together.

I used the same twist for the dark green that I used for the stem, which I did in stem stitch (or outline stitch - I still never remember which is which).

I don't actually find this much better to stitch in artificial light but I am determined to make some progress with it, so I persevere.

Happy Stitching