I did it! I actually got it finished. I wasn't sure I would but I kept going and just now finished at 2:20am. Each page in my journal will feature a birthday or anniversary of something that means something to me. I have always loved archaeology and Jan 3 just happened to be the day Howard Carter opened King Tut's tomb so I chose the boy king's death mask for the design. It's pretty detailed and I will probably not go that route again, I'll keep the designs more simple.
The outline is backstitched in gold metallic and there are small amounts of satin stitch, but the rest are all fly stitches. I really like how the stripes on the headdress came out and the beard.
So far so good!
18 comments:
You knocked the Fly Stitch out of the ballpark!! Holey Cow!!
I love the collar treatment. Between your and Judy's examples, I am looking at fly stitch as a great textural stitch now.
'Fly' ball! Sorry, it just came out. Angela, this is fantastic! I didn't know how you planned to use a stitch(es) on this image but this is amazing! Perfect!
Tut is looking marvelous! You've put a lot of stitching into bringing Tut to life!
Thanks for the compliments. You can use most any stitch as a filling stitch but I had not used fly stitch this way before. I'm pretty happy with it.
Beautiful work! The stitch really lent itself to filling in you image.
Beautiful!
Wow! This is fantastic! Very creative use of the fly stitch.
I was going to say wow, but Suz beat me to it! Just amazing! Here I thought you were going to use this image for the whole month, and then you did the whole thing, not to mention used metallic thread, which has to be the hardest stuff around. Wow, wow, wow! Great job!
My goodness. That is awesome!
That is amazing! I'm so impressed with it. You did a fabulous job and I know it represents hours and hours of work, and maybe frustration with the metallic thread. Beautiful!
WOW...this is amazing Good work
This is just amazing great work!!!
Do you have any tips for working with the metallic threads? Is there a brand that you prefer? Do you use anything like Thread Heaven to help keep the thread behaving well?
Sadly I haven't found any brands I really like yet. I need to try the thread heaven as see how it works. Most metallics are meant to be couched but I really don't like how it looks up close. It is one thing to use couching on something that will be seen from a couple feet away, quite another on something you will look at closely. My best advice is to use short lengths like 12-16 inches max because the thread will start separating and the non metallic part will start making loops that stick up, from pulling through the fabric. When it does that start with a new length even if you feel like you are wasting it. I used DMC this time because I had it. It comes in 6 strands just like the cotton. No worse than other brands and better than some.
Ah well. I keep hoping there's a special trick I just don't know yet.. but it sounds like perserverence, patience, and really short lengths are the only reliable approaches. :P
I totally agree with you that couching metallic thread just isn't the look I usually want.
I used a DMC metallic thread on part of my peacock feather and it worked great. I comes on a regular size spool like most thread. It is 40m, rayon and lame, and about 4-strands of very fine thread. I used it with one strand of regular embroidery floss for the entire 'feather' part around the eye.
Beautiful and interesting !
This is phenomenal Angela, and your lettered stitching is perfect... this is quite the study of theme and design, Thanks for sharing
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