Wednesday 12 December 2012

Toing and Froing

Most of the bird’s body is worked around and around in one continuous spiral. Where the neck meets the body, some shaping is required. This is done by stitching to and fro for several rows to get around the bend. Then you continue round and round gradually reducing the number of stitches until you reach the tail end of the body.

© The Essamplaire/Carol-Anne Conway

My first attempt seemed to be falling short of the bend so I had to unpick and try again..

© The Essamplaire/Carol-Anne Conway

© The Essamplaire/Carol-Anne Conway

The silver wire is one continuous thread from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. If you could stitch with a sufficiently long thread, the green silk could also be one continuous thread but of course it would not be practical to work buttonhole stitch with a thread several meters long. Instead, when one length runs out you simply join in another and continue as if it were the same thread. The loose ends get covered by the needle lace body as it grows.

© The Essamplaire/Carol-Anne Conway

© The Essamplaire/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

2 comments:

Rachel said...

The shaping is clearly an interesting challenge, but you obviously surmounted it!

MeganH said...

I bet your buttonhole stitching is getting good!
It's lovely to see someone doing this project. I have a friend doing it - she's been totally put off by the 'endless buttonholing in mud colour' - but I think he'll be lovely when he's done. It does look very fiddly, tho, placing the wires correctly over the body and getting the tension of the stitches just right to hold them in place and place the stitches correctly to show the silver.