Roses and rabbits (and a cat too)

I regularly take photos of my embroideries when I'm working on them.  Mostly to see if I'm on the right track with my colours etc. The obvious spot for taking these photos is near a window, where there's plenty of natural light. A bright, slightly cloudy day is best for taking pictures.

Rain or shine, I always have a trusty assistent helping me out with these photos. ;)

Today I was taking photos of this Rabbit & Roses piece. I'm quite happy with the overall look of this embroidery so far. I did unpick some of the stitching this morning (you can still see some stray floss-fluff on the fabric) as parts of the stitching just were not good enough in my opinion. In the process I managed to push the tip of the seam ripper I used for unpicking, under my nail which wasn't a very pleasant experience. Luckily it was my right hand (I'm left handed) and with lots of band aids on the injured finger, it doesn't stop me from continuing to work on my Rabbit & Roses piece. :)

Flower Bear Finished & new project started

Finished my Flower Bear a week ago or so but the lack of daylight really made it impossible to make a half decent photo. So when the sun came out this morning I grabbed my camera and made a few photos.

Here he is a bit closer. I really enjoyed making this piece and it has inspired me to start another embroidery, similar to the Flower Bear.

I received a Frixion pen from Rebecca in an &Stitches Secret Santa swap (alongside other fabulous goodies like different M & M flavours we don't have over here...) and used it to draw directly on the fabric. So the lines are a bit wobbly but I really like the freedom of drawing up a design like that, even though it's not my usual method of getting a design on fabric. The roses are based on an old embroidery I saw on the cover of a book but I didn't follow the example too closely.

I also got out my Anchor Embroidery Threads (bought a big lot second hand on Ebay years ago) and found some interesting colours like a really bright red, a shade I haven't seen among my DMC threads yet. My experience from stitching a pixelated rose in French Knots earlier this year, made choosing colours for this project easier and helped in my understanding of shading. So I'm happily adding orange and pink and really dark red shades to stitch these roses. :)

I probably won't have much time to work on this over Christmas but hopefully I can bring you an update on this project in the new year. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Bullion Knot Tutorial (my way)

The Bullion Knot is a fun stitch to have in your stitch repertoire. I especially like to make cute (slightly kitschy) roses with them. Now the Bullion Knot is feared by some stitchers but it's really not an incredibly complicated stitch to learn. I'm not claiming that my Bullion Knots are perfect, and I'm the first one to admit that the way I make them is a bit awkward but I hope this 'how to' will help one or two stitchers out there to overcome their fear of Bullion Knots! In a next tutorial I will show you how I make my Bullion Knot roses.

Milliners needles will make it easier for you to make a Bullion Knot (and French Knots as well). The eye of a Milliners needle is just as narrow as the shaft which makes it easier to pull through when you are making the actual 'knot'. Milliners needles are also longer than regular needles which makes wrapping your thread around the needle easy peasy. Now if you don't have a Milliners needle at hand, don't worry I have made Bullion knots with other types of needles too. Just make sure the needle isn't too short or has a 'bulky' eye.

So here's how you make a Bullion Knot.  I used the (hopefully) best photos from different Bullion Knots I made, hence the different floss colours. Hope it's not too confusing! I'm also a left-handed stitcher but as far as I can tell that really has no impact on how to perform this particular stitch. :)

Let the thread come up at A. The next step is to insert the needle at B ( and let it come up again at C.  Hold the eye-end of the needle down with your thumb so the upper bit of the needle comes up and start wrapping the thread (that comes up at A) around the needle 4-6 times (to start with) clockwise.

You can see that the Bullion Knot is already taking shape. It is now time to pull the needle through. Try to keep some tension on the thread that is on the right of your needle but not too much or you will have trouble pulling your needle through. Not enough tension and you may end up with something like this...

Eeeep! Where is my Bullion Knot? Don't worry,  keep on pulling the needle through gently and when you are nearly done, ease down the loops with your thumb and index finger....

...and it should then end up looking something like this. To secure the knot insert the needle at B again.

Here are some Bullion Knots I made earlier...

Now if you want to make a curved Bullion Knot (which is handy if you want to make Bullion Knot roses for example) you need to increase the number of wraps around the needle while keeping the distance from A to B (or B to C) the same as with the regular Bullion Knot.

Mmm in yellow they look a bit like maggots to me!

The more wraps the curvier your Bullion Knot will be! I exaggerated a little bit to show a really curvy Bullion Knot and wrapped the thread about 15 times around the needle. To make a Bullion Knot Rose you will probably be better off with a little less curvy Bullion Knot.  I will show you how to make Bullion Knot Rose in a next tutorial!

Let me know how you get on the with the Bullion Knot!