The Glittering Nightcap – Month Two Complete
Month Two Done
So, here we are, more progress on the Glittering Nightcap. It still looks spotty, but rather less so, I’m happy to say!
Month Two Detail
Here is a close up to show you what has been added in Month Two in more detail, and you can click on the picture to enlarge it further. The flower is apparently a honeysuckle (botanical realism wasn’t one of the artistic preoccupations of the period!), and is stitched in two shades of Gilt Sylke Twist, in detached buttonhole stitch. All of the pink and red buds are worked in detached trellis stitch in the soie perlee. In both these cases there is nothing complicated about changing colours – it is simply a matter of starting the new colour with a new row of stitches. It does mean that there seem to be ever more threads to finish off at the end of a stitching session, which is when I prefer to do it, because that means that when I sit down to start again everything is clear and tidy, and there is nothing to tangle my next set of stitches.
Stitch Direction
Working the trellis stitch involved some rather uncomfortable contortions in order to work the stitches in the directions described in the instructions. The annotated sketch on the right shows the stitch directions spiralling around the centre of the flower. The whole thing is mounted in a rectangular frame about twenty inches across – sometimes there is a lot of fabric and frame between me and the tiny petal I’m stitching.
That’s the other thing to remember – everything is very small. In a way this is not a problem, because even though the stitches are tiny the shapes do fill fairly quickly. If I have a good light, and a tranquil mind, I can make quite a bit of progress in a single afternoon.
Ahh, a tranquil mind, always good if you can get it! Nice to see the design coming to life as it gets “coloured in” 🙂
I too like the ‘tranquil mind’ thought. Its always easier for me to ‘create’ when I am at peace and tranquil. I would imagine, with the very small, intricate stitches that you create that would be even more important. The trellis stitch looks incredibly complicated.
Your stitching is so neat! I find stitching very good for unwinding – especially good old fashioned English paper piecing – the repetitive rhythmic stitching almost brings on a trance!
The tranquil mind is part of the Japanese philosophy of embroidery and many of the masters insist that embroiderers meditate before they start to stitch to achieve this state of mind.
So, embroidery is a kind of meditation? I like that!
as always I am so impressed with your beautiful, precise and neat embroidery…
It’s coming along beautifully.
Tis lovely as usual. You always make it seem so tactile – I think I have said this before, but I just want to stroke it! Hmmm …. I am a bit weird, possibly! xCathy
It’s beautiful and neat.I agree with everyone that rhythmic stitching is like meditating.I also know someone whose health conditions improved *a lot* after she had started stitching , her doctor has added stitching sessions in her therapy now and I was so happy that it had worked out for her because I taught her crochet and embroidery.
[…] whereas the zig zag effect of trellis worked back and forth across a shape (look at any close up in Month Two of the Glittering NightCap) doesn’t feel quite the right. I grant you that it’s another tiny detail that may not […]