January UFO

At the beginning of the New Year I pick out 2-3 unfinished kits from the UFO box to work on and hopefully finish. Heading off to Stitching' at the Beach two+ weeks ago I grabbed two old Unfinished Objects (otherwise known as UFOs) to work on when time permitted. I stuffed this one into a project bag...don't know when I took this class from Claudia Newton but it was several years ago.

The class was "A Script Monogram in Whitework". I had't done much of the work but then again there wasn't too much to complete either. The stitches used are Stem/Outline, Granito, Oval Granito Flowers with tiny Eyelets, Seeding, Trailing, Split Stitch Outline, Padded Stain Stitch, Chain Stitch, Wrapped Stem Stitch. There's a lot of stitches for such a small project!

The instructions call for a 12" pillow form, or a smaller one if making this as a ring bearer's pillow. I bought a 12" pillow form. But the embroidery looked lost in that expanse of white linen. So I decided to frame it with Swiss embroidered insertion. It looks lopsided in the photo...I must have taken the photo on an angle!

I cut off the fabric on each side of the trim and sewed the frame onto the linen with a fine zigzag going in and out of the entredeux holes. I chose a really nice Swiss embroidered edging for a ruffle and gathered up 3 yards of this yummy stuff and stitched it on. The back (already completed earlier) buttons closed with 3 pretty mother of pearl buttons. All it took was a quick seam around the square with the basted ruffles sandwiched in-between and it was done. Yeah....another UFO out of the box and into use!!

Button Brooch

It's done. Finished....yeah!!! One goal completed. The RSN "Scabiosa" Button class (taught by Jenny Adin-Christie) I took at their Williamsburg classroom is completed. Here are the steps:

After very carefully cleaning the piece and drying it for several days I cut away the linen and backing from around the button (the fabric that held the embroidery in the hoop). You can see the sheer fabric in this photo that was left. Then the instructions said to sand the acid-free cardboard disk to bevel the edge. I next applied a cotton pad to the disk (again carefully trimmed) with supplied archival glue.

Here the piece is pinned to a tan linen backing, centered, and I started stitching a gathering (running) stitch around the button with the supplied Nymo thread. The running stitch was positioned about 10cm from the ladder stitch edge to allow for turning over the cardboard.

The the gathering stitch was pulled up and over the edge of the padded cardboard with the design centered on the front side. The padding is against the wrong side of the embroidery. After gathering it up, the lacing was begun with the Nymo thread. Lacing is done going back and forth around the circle, say, from 12:00 to 6:00, then 1:00 to 7:00, and so forth, circling around the disk until it's perfectly tensioned around the circle. The last step was to sew a brooch pin to a pre-cut piece of wool felt I had on hand, and then glue and slip stitch that to the back of the Scabiosa button.

Here's the finished project!!! I'm so pleased with the results. I learned a great deal from Jenny's wonderful classroom instruction and fantastic written instructions.