Short Stitch holding, Wedding Ring Pillow

I did the temporary holding stitch, at 1 cm intervals, and finished the Short Stitch Holding (SSH) for the blue section. I was not able to maintain a consistent angle, so for the light brown section I decided to establish the angle using temporary guidelines that the SSH will follow. I'm using Clover Size 50 silk thread for the SSH, and to thin it out, I'm removing one of the 3 strands.

A concurrent project I'm starting is a Wedding Ring Pillow for my son's wedding next April. I had some problem getting started with the design, so I made a first attempt that was used as a starting point for discussion. The ground is dupioni silk, with spider roses, stitched leaves and french knots and beads. I initially added some crystals that turned out to be too much; the color is also too white. 

The next version should be reasonably close to the final piece. The design was made using a compass, with bubbles representing the motifs. I will make one more prototype before finalizing with silk threads and ribbons. The font will be the same as the wedding invitation (which hasn't been decided yet).

Hydrangea Leaf Bicolor

The leaf with SSH before the veins - I got lazy and didn't do the SSH for the lighter portion - but most of the lighter green is less than 1 cm:

After the veins:

Hydrangea leaf

One flower head done. Stitched one leaf, with short stitch holding, and veins.

Obi Blending

It looks nice after the blending thread is in; it evens out the wide difference in shading. Hopefully it will make the obi look very 3 dimensional when done (meaning of course that there really isn't that wide a variation in shading in both Mary Alice's and the JEC paper model).

 

The red thread defines the 8 mm spacing for the SSH.

Unfortunately it was impossible to see the every 3rd thread for the SSH, especially with the blending in place. So I added guide lines for the angle and I'm using the ruler to measure 2.5 mm for the SSH. I only need to do SSH for the lighter red.

I have the SSH done on the left side, and most of it on the right side. I can either do the blisters flowers next or continue on the obi around the waist.

 

Finished the kimono section. The fading was done with 2 strands of flat, using 0.25 step adjustments: 1.75Blue + 0.25Lavendar, 1.50Blue + 0.5Lavendar, 1.25Blue + 0.75Lavendar, etc.

Lesson: Should have periodically reviewed the satin stitches from multiple directions and angles while stitching. When the section was finished, I viewed it standing up and from the opposite direction, and I saw all the gaps that I didn't see while working from one direction!

 

Repair: I was able to fix it by using one strand to fill in the gaps. Fortunately it turned out ok, and was not noticeable. It will be fine once the short stitches (SSH) are in.

 

Next onto the temporary holding stitches and the SSH that spans the 8 mm of the temporary holdings.  The project picture from JEC, showing the SSH stitches to be perpendicular.

 

 

My temporary holding stitches at 8 mm following the curve of the kimono.

 

 

Started on the short stitch holdings, using a handy 3 mm ruler, with spacing at 1.5 mm, instead of counting threads.

 

Lesson: Put the SSH just short of the temporary holding thread, so that the temporary holding thread can be removed easily. Duh! Totally obvious and I didn't think of it the last time.

 

I'm using lavendar for the SSH at the bottom, and blue for the top part of the kimono. I'll see if it may be necessary to use a combination of lavendar and blue in certain parts.