Gold work Sampler – Finished

Gold Work Sampler
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

67 hours to complete the silk motifs and a further 37 hours to complete the gold work. This sampler has taken far longer to complete than I anticipated. At times it was tempted to put it aside. Not because I was not enjoying it but because I am longing to get on with either my Japanese Embroidery or my beading. But I knew that if I put it aside I may never get around to finishing it and I very much wanted to finish it and I am very pleased that I persevered. I have had a lot of fun learning these stitches and for the most part I am pleased with all of them.

I really enjoyed doing the interwoven stitches and the plaited braid stitch variations. I am probably least pleased with the ladder stitch variations. If I could be bothered to take them out and redo them, I think that I could do a better job now but I am more than ready to move onto another project.

The Back
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Plaited Braid Stitch Variations

In her book Elizabethan Stitches, Jacqui Carey, describes a slightly different method for standard plaited braid stitch.

Plaited Braid Stitch (Jacqui Carey’s standard method)
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Jacqui starts the stitch in a different way but for me the significant difference is how/where the thread passes through the fabric and re-emerges for the start of the next link. Using Tricia’s method the thread passes through the fabric outside of the loops and shows as little legs along the length of the PBS.

Using Jacqui’s method the thread passes through the fabric inside of the loops and you are not left with legs showing. I prefer the look of this method.

Jacqui also describes two variations on the standard PBS. It was fun to do the different variations and I used them to fill a couple of gaps on my sampler but I still prefer the look of her standard PBS.

Jacqui Carey’s variation 1
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Jacqui Carey’s variation 2
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Plaited Braid Stitch

Whenever possible, I like to save the best to last. On a piece like this, where so many of the stitches were new to me, it is difficult to know which technique will be ‘best’. I chose to leave the stitch that intrigued me the most; the stitch that I had heard and read so much about. Opinion seems to be divided over Plated Braid Stitch; it is a marmite stitch, you either love it or you hate it. I have often read that it is a difficult. I think that it is like many of the other stitches I have learnt on this sampler; the mechanics of the stitch are not difficult to follow but practice and patience are needed to get the correct and consistent tension on the loops.

I read the instructions through a couple of times before attempting the stitch. There are several steps involved in the making of each complete ‘link’ and I had to refer back to the instructions frequently at first while practicing on my doodle cloth. After a few repetitions I got into a rhythm and was able to do the stitch on the sampler pretty much from memory except for the first link, which is worked slightly differently.

Plaited Braid Stitch
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

The tension is not as consistent as I would have liked but I am pretty pleased with my first attempt at PBS.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

When the Sun Shines

Most of my stitching is done in the morning before I leave for work. In the summer months my frame is located beside an east facing window where there is sufficient light to work by but I am not in direct sunlight. Recently I was stitching at the weekend late in the afternoon. It was an overcast day but there must have been a break in the cloud because briefly the sun came out and lit up the gold work on my sampler.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

I enjoy the technical challenges of gold work and metallic threads but seeing how my work sparkling in the evening sunshine reminded me that the best thing about gold work is the glitter and the glitz!

Happy Stitching

Josephina Knot

The foundation for the Josephina Knot is a little more complicated that the other foundations. It employs the help of a pin to hold the loop in place until the first round of interweaving is completed after which the 'legs' hold each loop securely. The stitch is completed by following the original thread path twice more.

Josephina Knot
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

This was one of my favourite stitches both to work and in appearance.

Happy Stitching

Interlacing Stitches

The next few stitches are interlacing stitches worked on a variety of foundations. I found them all relatively simple and pleasing to do. The under over foundation grids hold the interwoven thread nicely in place.

Circular Interlacing Stitch
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Diagonal Four-sided Interlacing Stitch
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Four-sided Interlacing Stitch
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Eight-sided Interlacing Stitch
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Figure Eight Interlacing

The next stitch, taking them in order of the lessons, would have been Plaited Braid Stitch but I want to leave that to last. Figure Eight Interlacing looked a little complex at first glance but once I had read through the instructions a couple of times I realised that it was fairly straight forward. The instructions warn that the loops have a tendency to sit up and I found this to be the case.

Figure Eight Interlacing
© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

As with some of the other interlaced stitched, I was not able to make the loops a consistent size. I guess these things come with practice and cannot be mastered in a short length on a sampler!

Happy Stitching