0 Needlequest 2014 - March - technique - goldwork

Welcome to the third month of the Needlequest challenge and the second technique: goldwork.  Like all embroidery techniques, goldwork is a huge topic and a month is really only enough time to have a small taste or two, but that's what the challenge is about - sampling something new and seeing if you want to take it further later on.

Goldwork can be done in gold, in silver, in a host of bright, metallic colours and also as a part of a piece alongside silk, rayon, cotton or other threads.  The pieces decorating this post are from my own work with metallic threads in the past.  As you can see, there are some more traditional, entirely gold/metallic pieces and some that are a combination of both glitzy shinies and more everyday materials.

Many goldwork pieces rely on a lot of couching, which can be done with either quite thick and heavy threads or finer threads to achieve more delicate effects.  The body of this fish is couched around, but the fins are created with long straight stitches, (the yellow and orange part is worked in rayon thread - Anchor Marlitt).

If you're interested in books on goldwork, some good titles to consider include:

* Country Bumpkin's 'The A-Z of Goldwork'
* Hazel Everett 'Goldwork - Techniques, Projects and Pure Inspiration'
* Ruth Chamberlain 'Beginners Guide to Goldwork'
* Helen McCook 'RSN Stitch Guide: Goldwork'
There is also a section on goldwork in 'Royal School of Needlework Embroidery Techniques' by Sally Saunders et al.

As ever, there's a good list of tips, techniques and book reviews over on Mary Corbet's Needle and Thread gold work page.

One thing to bear in mind when trying out goldwork is to make sure to cut your metal threads with specially toughened scissors, or even wire cutters if you have nothing else!  Don't use your regular embroidery scissors, unless you want an excuse to buy a new pair...!!=)

Of course, goldwork samples and pieces don't have to be large or complicated.  In fact, for the purposes of our challenge, small and/or simple are probably best.  I plan to work two of the simple butterflies from the Hazel Everett book (more on that in my next update posting) and the design my own small piece, which will go on to be mounted in a card for friends' wedding in mid July.

What about you?  What will you create?


Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2014

Detail: Needlequest 2014 - March - technique - goldwork

0 Goldwork viola

And I managed the strings! I didn't think they'd ever work out, but I ended up putting two rows of bright check purls over a small piece of felt to give enough height for the strings to both catch on the bridge and get over the bottom part of the finger board. If you don't look at that part too closely, it's OK!!

The background is now totally done on the narrowboat piece, but as it's not much different from last time, it's not really worth a new picture yet. Hope to show more of that later in the week.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the sense of accomplishment that came from having finally completed that viola. I started it in Taiwan back in mid February 2010, so it's taken 20 months to get it from re-working the design to completing the stitching! I hope I don't have too many more projects that progress so shakily...


© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Detail: Goldwork viola

0 Two things actively WIP!

Wow! Two pieces currently being worked on! I've been putting in most of the half stitch sky on the narrowboat cross stitch piece. You mayn't be able to see it very clearly, but it's there in two shades of light blue. Not much further to go on that, and then it's on to the top stitching.

Much to my amazement, I had the urge to get on with the goldwork viola too! I put in this long piece of almost vertical pearl purl #1 and hope to get the other side done over the weekend, and maybe also some other bits. I'm really unsure of how the strings could be worked so that they look realistic, so it may be that I have to omit them. I'd rather leave something out than have that element spoil the whole effect by it's weakness!

I really need to get the slight white flecks (dust??) off this piece before it's finally photographed!

Digging around on YouTube (which I've begun to do too much of lately.....) I found this video, which some may enjoy. Also worth looking up is their 2009 display, which I actually preferred as it has some wonderful caskets, boxes and an album cover as well as a quilt that is a mosaic of a face! Well, head and shoulders really. The reason I've embedded this one though you can see from about 2.19 mins onwards for a while. There you see vertical rows of small square embroideries, probably worked by different members, on the same fabric background. I was struck by the potential of this idea for around the house! Perhaps I could do another piece or two on black silk to go with the viola?? A way to display samples of things and small pieces without having the expense of buying a frame. See what you think:



Hoping to get back to my old, pre-Taiwan posting schedule of bi-weekly WIP updates on Mondays and Thursdays. Perhaps I can accomplish this goal by the end of this year? Let's see! I'm feeling quite enthusiastic at the mo, but next month my umph could be stolen by other interests.....
© Elizabeth Braun 2011

Detail: Two things actively WIP!

0 A design's not final 'til the stitching's finished!

This was the design I initially created for friends' Silver Wedding (25th) anniversary card, to be worked in silver goldwork threads and Anchor Marlitt:


The changes started when I went to my LNS only to find that, although they stocked plenty of gold goldwork threads, their supply of silver was very low indeed. I wasn't able to get pearl purl and so had to adapt straight away to twist instead. I managed to get the silver kid leather, but when I tried to cut it out into the inner heart shape, the result was so creased and, frankly, cheap and nasty looking that I couldn't bear to use it. So, that bit got dumped too and I decided to move the trellis from over the purples, to filling the inner (now middle) heart. The tiny heart in the centre was to be filled with silver bright check purl.


However.... I noticed that the silver of the bright check was not as cool as the rest of the silver threads. In fact, it was relatively yellow. That bothered me, so I ditched that idea and decided to fill in the space with French knots in DMC metallic floss.


Above you can see the first stage of the purple shading completed and the second layer underway. The top right hand side ended up so un-even that, when I'd done the lot, I realised that, not only would I have to outline the inside of that section with Kreinik Fine Braid, but that I needed a line of it between the two purples as you can see below:


By this time I'd also decided that I wasn't going to fussing around adding in accents in pink Marlitt either!!

So, much changed from the original design, here is the finished item. It's a little puckered, sadly, but that came from my not getting the silk fabric totally flat on the backing cotton when I was sewing them together - a problem I've had before.=(


And here's a side view. Of course, it isn't possible from this angle for my camera to focus everything perfectly (so I had to cut the bottom section off!!), so the right hand side is a tad blurred, but I hope you like the effect all the same. All that remains now is to decide whether to mount it in a round or square aperture card.


So, although I haven't blogged my work for a fair few weeks, I have been stitching! This isn't all I've been doing either, there's more. I'll post about that in the days to come.

Detail: A design's not final 'til the stitching's finished!

0 A bit more goldwork

Another rather disappointing photo, (I can't tell you how much better it looks in real life!), but here are the latest two (counting both f holes as one element) additions to the goldwork viola picture. -> I was pleasantly surprised how smoothly these sections went. Next up is the whole fingerboard and neck/scroll area in no.1 pearl purl. The smaller detail will be done in a pearl purl of smaller guage (but I don't know what it actually is), then the nuts will be done in Coats Ophir (like a very fine Jap) - like the f holes have been - and then filled in with bright check. Then I have to think of how to manage a convincing bridge and strings....

Considering that I have a number of time sensitive things to do over this summer, I have actually no idea why I'm concentrating on finishing the two that have no deadlines and are just for our home! I've two cards and, assuming I can find the keyring 'blank', a small monogram to go in it to do for various points in June, the violets/fish cushion and the blackberries pouch to have done by July and another gift for mid August. Hmmm! If anyone's seen my common sense roaming free anywhere, do send it back express!;)

I think I use too many brackets - just looking at my first paragraph! Recently I was reading a book review by someone I know and found it really hard to follow as they had far too many asides and big words in their sentences. Simple, plain, concise. That's the mark of a good teacher/writer. Got it, Lizzie? Good!

Detail: A bit more goldwork

0 Kid it is!

The vote went for a kid leather chinrest on the goldwork viola and, as I agreed with that - even though kid is a beast to stitch through - here it is in a side view to show how raised it ended up (only one layer of padding):


Rotten photo, I'm afraid! My photography seems to be going through a bad patch just now.=) Anyway, there's a border of Kreinik Fine Braid in 102C around the kid. I also finally managed to get that little bit of copper border that had frayed re-done without it going nasty again.

I had hoped to get more done before posting again, but it's been a busy week. A week full of surprises too. The greatest surprise, beating the runner up by a small margin, was going into Sir's study on Friday lunchtime to find him on-line watching live coverage of the Royal Wedding on German TV!!=)

I've managed to get a bit more of the water under the narrowboat done and here it is, pretty much afloat. There's still more to do on that part, then a bridge and small tree etc to fill in on the left hand side. The main stitching must be about 70% done now. LONG gone are the days when I would get something like this finished within two or three weeks.=)


Thanks for the ideas on how to stretch and straighten the giraffe. I'll try that - when I get the necessary things. Might have to use a kitchen shopping board and wash out a cleaning fluid bottle thoroughly to use as a spray as I've nothing that will pass for a plant spray or cork tile at the mo. Will report back on that one once I've had a go at it.

Detail: Kid it is!

0 Two finishes. Yes, TWO!

So, I really got going this week and finished two things! No, not the narrowboat - I haven't had that much stitching time.=) In fact, I've only put a little bit of water in on that, so it isn't worth showing, but as I've run out of ideas for 'information posts' for the time being and have got back into my own embroidery work somewhat (could be famous last words.....), I hope to post WIP shots more often instead.=)

The first finish was the giraffe needlepoint that I was given as a 12th birthday present by Nicholas Cook! I remember him explaining why he chose it out of the series (it was the only one with a girl's name, bless him!). I decided not to save it to complete whilst I'm away doing exam work in May, but rather to make use of mum's sewing machine those 3 weeks and get it finished up into the cushion cover I've planned. I'm going to give to a disabled girl (I say 'girl', but she's not much younger than me!!) who likes cushions on her bed. Had I given it to a little girl as I'd originally thought, she would have grown out of it in time, but Georgina won't as she will always have a mental age of around 13, so it's perfect.


As you can see, it's got a bit warped. I know that this wouldn't be a problem had I been planning to frame it as the stretching process would correct it, but I'm going to be using it in a patchwork. Any ideas on how to straighten it up a bit??

Now then, here's the finish of the month, the water violets design! I put the last stitches, the water lines, in on this early yesterday afternoon. I decided to exclude the mayfly after all. It would have looked better, more balanced with it, but I really had had enough by then and just wanted it complete. So, this is it:


This too will be made into a cushion cover and I'll do that at the same time as the giraffe. I'll need to get some backing fabric for it. Oh, the design is in the right hand half of the cushion, in case you're wondering why I was doing such a long, thin cushion.=)

I've also got re-started to some degree on the goldwork viola (don't anyone dare call it a violin!). I put the felt padding on the chinrest yesterday, but I haven't finally decided on what to overlay it with. The options are rough purl and kid leather of which I have silver and gold. I know very little about goldwork, but I have two or three useful books that can help. I'm undecided on many parts of it - what threads to use etc. Anyone with more experience care to comment? Mary? Ruth?


All the best with a dog design, Linda and, go on, start a blog! If you do that kind of work, then I want to see it!=)

© Elizabeth Braun 2010

Detail: Two finishes. Yes, TWO!