Parterre – final stages

While I was stitching away at the limestone pavement, it occurred to me that I maybe needed to think of some way to “finish off” the edges. I’d left a corner space in the green border, being unwilling to go down to a straight stitch over a single thread, which rarely looks good.

I decided that the best way to to deal with the whole look would be to pull the inside and outside together, using the cream to run around the whole garden – limestone chippings to separate one garden room from another!

Using a double cross stitch boss in each corner seemed to work – just enough emphasis to put a full stop at the end of each run of the plait stitch.

The plait stitch also helped by tidying up the gap in the short sides. I left the gap because the “hedge” repeat didn’t fit into the short side neatly, and when I got to the edge with the limestone pavement, I wasn’t happy with the way it looked. I am now, though – I think the plait stitch worked well, stopping the pavement falling off into the view!

Once I’d got everything else done, I could start to work on the central boss. My book told me that Turkey Stitch, which I was intending to use, is Unsuitable For Mono Thread Canvas, which was a bit of a facer, but fortunately offered Surrey Stitch as an alternative.

So I got started on the Surrey Stitch – which turned out not to be as quick as I expected..

So, not quite the final stages!