Monday 13 February 2017

Wedding Dress Modesty Panel - Cream silk stitching


Welcome to part two of the wedding dress panel series.  Today we're looking at the creation of the basic satin stitched flower and leaf motifs. I had a couple of kind comments on the stitchery from the last post, but I only showed photos of the embroidery and embellishments on the dress proper, i.e. not my work at all. Sorry for any confusion there, it seems I wasn't sufficiently clear. From now on, all the work is mine! 

To be honest, a lot of them were not worked terribly well, especially not the smaller flowers, which weren't that easy to create.  However, I wasn't too worried about that as I knew the dodgy parts would be covered by outlining and beads, so I could get away with working a few flowers before finding the best method.  Above you can see all the small motifs done - a first milestone, then below a detail shot of one part once the first of that medium flowers was complete.



It was at the point in the 3rd photo that I ran out of thread!  I'd badly underestimated the amount of silk needed and thought that what I had in stock would do.  It didn't - not nearly!

The next part of the drama was to source a supplier who didn't charge the earth for shipping and would do so quickly, so not Barnyarns this time, but Silken Strands - a small, family business based in Wales.  Highly recommended for speed of service and reasonable postage costs.  I confess to having enjoyed 24 hours off the project to catch up with some other tasks whilst the threads arrived ☺

Drama stage three was receiving the threads (I bought two packs to be sure of having enough!) and finding that they were a whole shade lighter than the original one I'd had a few years!  Possibly it had darkened in storage.  Anyway, Janet and I agreed that, in view of the timing, it was more important to carry straight on and hope it wouldn't show later on than to try and source another shade.  Those of you who are, like me, very sensitive to nuances of colour (and have good screen resolution) may be able to see where one shade ends and the second began.  It was clearer in real life and screamed almost painfully at me....

You can see the colour difference again here in this close up, but it fades into less significance when the whole lot of the silk work is done.  To be honest, that colour change was the only real disappointment to me in this project.


That's it for this time.  Next time I'll be taking you on a tour of the silver work parts.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

6 comments:

Cynthia Gilbreth said...

Well, I think it's looking lovely. I think once you get a bunch of beads around the flowers the color change won't be so noticeable. Will the bride be wearing a veil? If so, that will help, and if she takes it off for the reception, I can't imagine people will be crowding around her back to see a color variation. (unless your faithful readers get invited :) ).

Anonymous said...

This is gorgeous...can't wait to see the finished product!

Rachel said...

It looks good, although I do understand the disappointment over the shades. I'm sure the outlining will help!

D1-D2 said...

Oh the horror! Good thing the bride was so relaxed ;)

Anonymous said...

Since you've pointed out the color difference, yes, I can see it, but since it's actually relatively balanced across the piece, it really does not look like "Oops, I ran out of thread!" And the beads and outlining will help the balancing, too. It's going to be lovely!

SuperMomNoCape said...

I understand the feeling of disappointment that the whites were not a match. I think most crafters would feel the same way about a piece they were working on as well. But most people are going to look at it and think that the subtle color change was what was intended from the beginning. It's going to be gorgeous!

Thanks so much for linking this up to last week's Stitchery Link Party. Aloha hugs!

 
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