Shamrock Bows

I am on a roll… Oh I just love it when I have a feeling of accomplishment, but I am ahead of myself… I had researched the technique, gathered the supplies (floss for padding and chenille needles for stitching) but was still not stitching the bow. I knew how I expected it to look but just wasn’t in the mood to tackle it. Have you ever been here? I knew it wasn’t because I felt  incapable of this technique; I just wasn’t in the mood. And I do think that you have to be in the mood to tackle certain projects.

I know I’ve heard that you can tell the mood of a stitcher by looking at her basketweave stitching…I believe this. I think anytime your mood changes, or your mind is someplace other than what you are doing. Example – Driving and daydreaming: Have you ever been driving and all of a sudden you realize you are further down the road than you thought, or already to your destination. Scary isn’t it? Or you have all the stuff to make meatloaf but it’s just not sounding like a meatloaf night to your taste buds?

Well, that’s where I was with the bow…I just wasn’t feeling it. Obviously wasn’t feeling it since I started the piece in January (https://sudukc.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/shamrock-stitching/ ) and have stitched several things in between. I don’t like to think of it as procrastination because I knew it was in the stitching pile, I really was just not ready to tackle the project.  Last week I picked it up; I finally felt like I could tackle the project. I was still a bit leery that my stitching would not match what my eye was seeing, but I decided that I needed to attempt a start. I knew that if it went poorly I could cut it out; but I also knew I was going to be piercing canvas threads with my chenille needle and would be weakening the canvas. With a bit of trepidation I started. I did one side first and spent the day looking at it. While it did not quite match my mind’s eye it was not overly offensive to me either; I just had to give my mind eye time to adjust to the reality of the stitching. And of course, I think we are always overly critical of our own stitching.

I set it up on the shelf and walked away from it and did something completely unstitching related…reading my second love. And low and behold the affirmation moment happened…I was reading about art (okay so it is creatively related to stitching) but this artist was saying that we need to allow the right brain to see the beauty that the left brain is trying to tell us is not there. I immediately looked at the bow and knew it was going to be okay…not perfect but acceptable to me if I allowed it to be so. I finished stitching the bow the next day.

This is how I stitched the bow: I used a 7 ply silk to stich the bows. I outlined, padded and satin stitched the loops of the bow. The tails of the bow were horizontal Satin stitch without padding or outline stitches.

The first picture is an outline of one bow loop.

Step 1: I used 2 ply to outline the loops of the bow.  I outlined both the outside and inside of the loops.

Step 2: I used a cotton floss close in silk color to pad the loops. I tried not striping the floss but I knew even before I began stitching this was not going to work so I striped the floss and used all 6 ply.  I laid the floss along the area and adjusted angles as I stitched the satin stitches.

Step 3: Stitched stain stitches with 5 ply silk. Pierced canvas threads and changed direction as I moved around the bow.

The tails of the bow were stitched with 5 ply silk in a horizontal Satin stitch starting at the bottom and worked toward the bow.

So the bow is stitched and I have learned to silence the left side of my brain and allow the right side to shine through. I like my stitching better…at least for this piece; but I know the left brain can’t stay quiet for long.

But this week-end I finished stitching my bow, maybe I will get it finished finish this week… and maybe two posts in one week. What is the world coming to?

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have time to stitch today!
ttfn…sue