Karahana, Guidelines

I’ve done a little bit of this and a little bit of that but not made much progress with anything.

I’ve started to add a second layer of stitching on the strawberry purse but am still not getting the look I want so have paused to think about it some more. I so want to make this project that I am loath to give up, but it is causing me so much trouble that I am not entirely enjoying the process.

From a blogging point of view, I’m not sure that Karahana will be of much interest for a while. The next five petals are repeats of the one just completed. I can post progress reports but no real new information until I move on to a different design element.

I have made a little progress this week. With the uppermost petal complete, I have begun to the two petals either side of it. The turnovers are worked first and I have completed the two rows of couching round and round. The first round takes longest to work, as I need to take care to cover the very visible black outline on the fabric and to space the couching stitches evenly. Once this row is in place, the subsequent ones generally go a little quicker. I feel as if I am getting a bit quicker at this technique. That may be down to my growing confidence at handling the gold threads.

Before the box couching can commence, I need to stitch guidelines and add the padded lines. I have taken care to align the vertical guidelines with the now covered guidelines on the first petal. I don’t know if this is necessary since they are individual petals, but it is an important detail to me. I have also put in a single horizontal guideline on each turnover to align them horizontally as well as vertically. At least, that’s the plan!

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

While taking this picture, I realised that I have not done enough lines, they should be spaced every 3 mm rather than every 6 mm as I have done them. I’m glad that I noticed that before I couched all the padding cotton in place!

Happy Stitching