Assembling the stumpwork dragonfly

It's finally complete! The dragonfly is done and today I share with you how the last stages were done.

First I covered the last of the padding stitches with satin stitch in two strands, making the far left hand side considerably narrower to form the head.

Next I added two beads for the eyes.  I still feel these are a little large for the context (actually, the whole insect feels much too large for my comfort), but the ones supplied with the kit were even larger, so it could have been worse!

Following on from this stage was adding in the legs and one or two other parts in Kreinik Cord.  I used the grey-ish brown shade here.

I also added in one or two stitches in dark grey on the tail area in keeping with the real thing - as seen in my good old Brtitsh Wildlife book.=)

Last of all, the wings were attached using the method detailed in my tutorial on assembling a wired stumpwork flower.

And here is the whole finished item from two angles:

So, that's the last of the old DMC stumpwork kits worked up.  I'm glad it wasn't the first one I tried, or it might well have been the last!  The other four were far better.  The designs and instructions were superior and truer to life.  Yes, I know there can be a good deal of artistic license with stumpwork, but I personally feel that the scale inequalities and so on that are part and parcel of the traditional raised work style are more fitted to figurative work, i.e. pictures that look rather like 17th century pieces.  Many modern designs are much more realistic and that's the type of raised work I like best.

What's coming up next?  I've made a start on the first of four bookmarks that are to be gifts for my in-laws and another couple when we're in Germany next month.  They'll all be counted work, which will be nice for relaxation.=)  After that, I need to do two silver wedding cards, both of which will be 'gold' work and freestyle - probably silver hearts with various filling elements and also to finish Sir's anniversary present, which I wasn't able to get done in time to give him this morning.=(  The sampler is coming to Germany with me and I hope to make considerable progress on that there and then I can look at some fresh ideas.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013

Raised padded stem stitch band

Has it really been almost a month?  I'm shocked!  Well, here I am, still in more or less one piece and with a valiant effort on the dragonfly project to share.  Basically, I've worked out how to do the head, body and tail and the first thing to do was to ignore the instructions that came with the kit which, in part, were:

It seemed to me that this working plan was not only biologically inaccurate - the written part described the rounded end as the head and the long, thick part as the body, when the body is where the rounded part is and should have had a small area added for the head, and the 'body' should be much thinner and called 'the tail' - but also that the stitch instructions weren't quite right.

I realised that it was a padded raised stem stitch band that was being described here, and found much more helpful instructions in  Country Bumpkin's 'The Embroiderers Handbook', which you can see a part of here:

See a major difference?  The kit said work all along one band, but the CB book says to work from one end to the other in columns rather than rows.  As this is what every other set of instructions I've seen for stem stitch band, padded or otherwise, said, I decided to use the CB version instead.

As the tail part was clearly far too wide - dragonfly and demoiselle flies tending to be rather on the narrow side here - I cut the padding back from three stitches wide to two.  Still too wide really, one would have been enough, but I went with two just the same.

The next step was to add in the bands all along the length of the tail section.

After that, beginning at the body end, you need to hook each stem stitch through each band and work from one end to the other.

Repeat this step until the whole area is covered - you might need to put in more lengths than you might think in order to keep the stitches close together and cover the padding well.

And here's the finished result from both top and side:

The next step is to work the body area and the narrower area you may have noticed that I created for the head.  After that, I'll add in two beads for the eyes and put in some legs and so on.  Finally, the needlelace wings, which are now all complete, will be attached and this piece will be done.

Oh, by the way, for anyone who's interested, I've started a Google+ account and am happy to add anyone who follows/reads my blog to my Stitchers circle, where you'll get posts about new blog updates etc.  I also started two communities: Creative Embroidery and Stumpwork and Raised Embroidery, so please do look those up and join!  See you there!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013