Assembling the Gentleman’s Glittering Nightcap – Part Three

Having attached the ultrasuede and doctor’s flannel to two of the triangles, and made a brocade pocket on the third, the fourth was given extra padding, and extra stitches created an almost upholstered effect, making a pincushion.

Once the brocade backing triangles were attached, the four triangle assemblies had buttonhole loops added at the top corners, to provide a channel for the ribbon that will hold the étui closed. Then they needed to be joined in a chain at the bottom corners, and attached to the circular brocade-covered skirtex base to create a square-based pyramid.

It turned out really well.

I’ve had lots of practice with trellis stitch and detached buttonhole stitch with return, I’ve Spangled until I’m seeing stars, and I’ve done a lot more reverse chain stitch in gold.

I can’t quite see myself using the étui in my ordinary stitching life, but I can see myself putting it in a carefully lit corner and gloating over it!

Assembling the Glittering Gentleman’s Nightcap – Part Two

Before we move on – here is the Glittering Nightcap, being modelled by Mandy, who was given to me for my first Christmas.  My grandfather made me a cradle to fit her, and I intend to make some bedding, and some clothes for Mandy, to go with the patchwork coverlet my grandmama made for the cradle. Unfortunately, I carried Mandy around by her hair for years, so the hair you can see is a wig, which in turn meant that that when I found Mandy again I didn’t think any modern little girl would welcome her. The cradle, with bedding and Mandy will end up as a sort of display piece. Eventually.

In the meantime – doesn’t she look sweet!

The étui is made of triangular sections covered with brocade and mounted on brocade covered circles to create a little pyramid. Each external face consists of skirtex with padding covered with brocade, and then has a different element – a doctor’s flannel panel for needles, an ultrasuede scissor pocket, a pincushion, and a brocade pocket for stilettos or mellors. The ultrasuede is a real trial to stitch – very, very tough to get the needle into – but it’s done now.

Each face is backed by another triangle, of card covered with brocade, and the two slip stitched together. Then there will be the interesting challenge of mounting the triangles somehow.

Assembling the Glittering Gentleman’s Nightcap – Part One

So now, having finished the embroidery, I need to assemble the Nightcap. In addition, Tricia has designed a stand for it, which is in the form of an étui. Consequently I have a rather distracting heap of brocaded silk, doctors flannel, ultrasuede, ribbon and gold lace. Not to mention batting and buckram…!

As I’ve said before, I am never entirely at ease finishing a piece into three dimensional form.  So there was a slight hiatus while I gathered my courage to begin.

I decided to finish the Nightcap itself first, as – not least – I was rather keen to see it!

The first stage was to add the lace to the top of the brim, and then create the shape by sewing up the seams on the crown. The lace was easy enough to apply, once the folds were in place, but sewing up the seams on the crown was surprisingly fiddly!

I had wondered, in looking at the instructions, why the seams were embellished with reverse chain stitch, and I think you can see why in this photo of the Nightcap finished (externally) apart from that detail.

As this picture shows! Admittedly the orange background also helps to bring the Nightcap to life, but the reverse chain stitch in gold is another detail – like the pearl centres on the Floral Glove – that adds sparkle and polish to the piece.

The next stage was to line the Nightcap – using a lovely pale gold silk brocade. Again, simple enough to state, but slightly tricky in execution!

Lining completed, another deep breath and pause prepared me for the next stage…

 

The Glittering Nightcap – Comparisons

The pictures in this post link to some close-ups I find positively terrifying. It’s astonishing to think that not so long ago I could never have taken a shot like these without buying some pretty serious equipment. I spent some time picking my digicam, but there is absolutely nothing special about it, and yet…!

Even looking at the real thing it is hard to see details. The eye tends to be overwhelmed by the glitter – which is very useful if there are elements one would prefer others not noticed, but positively counter productive if the aim is to analyse the techniques.

I am trying to compare and assess the differences between the Detached Buttonhole Stitch with Return worked into Chain Stitch, which is what I did on the Crown of the Nightcap with the Bordered Detached Buttonhole Stitch with Return, which is what I used on the Brim.

In the case of the silk used for the leaves, one of the reasons the stitching on the crown appears loose and floppy compared with the stitching on the brim is that in the latter case I decided not to heather my threads.

I had the impression while I was stitching that the stitching on the Brim was ending up neater and tighter than the stitching on the Crown. Looking at these photos I still can’t decide whether I was right or not!

Maybe in some cases it is. Maybe when the whole thing is made up and I can get the Crown and the Brim in a single photograph, I might be able to come to a decision!

Glittering Nightcap – Embroidery Finished!

Finally!

It has been a very long haul, but at long last the silkwork on the brim of the Glittering Gentleman’s Nightcap was finished. That in turn meant that I could get going on the goldwork, of which there isn’t really very much – only the stems, and the centres of the pansies.

In fact, it took rather longer than I expected, because the gold thread was rather more tender than I remembered, ravelling and fraying if I so much as looked at it. It’s the same thread as I used on the crown, so I can only imagine that either I have forgotten how it behaved last time, or that the tail end of the spool has loosened slightly in the time I’ve not used it. I can quite believe that would happen, since it’s over a cotton core, and natural fibres can be rather sensitive to atmospheric conditions.

Once the goldwork was done, I could put the spangles on. Continuing my slight alterations to the instructions, I’ve used rather fewer spangles than on the crown. I’m hoping that that, too, will help to provide contrasts of light reflectance and texture.

Of course, now I need to gather both courage and wits to put the thing together!

All these pictures are clickable so you can look at them in more detail, but I will take some more close-up pictures to compare the brim and the crown. In particular, I want to see whether there are obvious differences between the Detached Buttonhole Stitch with Return that I worked on the crown, and the Bordered Detached Buttonhole Stitch with Return that I worked on the brim, and if so what they are!