Floral Glove, Bright Check Leaves

When we demonstrate Japanese embroidery, people often say "that must take a lot of patience". I enjoy embroidery so much, become so absorbed in the process, that I find it more relaxing than something that requires patience. But the next step on Floral Glove certainly did take a lot of patience!

I’d had a taste of how painstaking this process would be when covering the calyx with coloured purl. The leaves in the middle roundel are covered with bright check – a triangular shaped wire formed on a three cornered needle. If anything, the bright check is even more springy than the purl and the leaves are very much smaller that the calyx. Measuring and cutting the tiny pieces needed to cover each leave was very fiddly.

An even greater test of one’s patience is sewing the pieces into place. Bright check is made from a very fine flattened wire and it is near impossible to cut without leaving a small tail sticking out. Silk threads have an amazing ability to snag on the slightest thing so sliding the ‘beads’ of bright check onto the silk thread is rather like trying to put silk stockings onto barbed wire!

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy this part but it really did test my patience. But, boy was it worth it. The triangular segments spiral around the wire creating a faceted surface that glitters and sparkles like no other thread. This is the blingiest of BLING!

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching