Chapter 7 – Dorset Buttons

I tried to make Dorset buttons  didn’t do a great job although I enjoyed the process of making them regardless.

Image 1 – Have you tried to buy curtain rings lately?  It’s near impossible.  At least in my town.  So here’s what I ended up getting from Wilkinsons to try:

 

Image 2 – Dorset buttons:

Image 3 – My favourite one!  The green yarn is actually sparkly but you can’t really tell from this image.  It is wound round a washer:

 

Image 4 – Wool wrapped round a wooden curtain ring:

 

Image 5 – Fabric wrapped around a wooden curtain right with wool spokes adorned with beads:

 

Image 6 – Wool wrapped round a wooden curtain ring.  The spokes have been woven into but it’s not very successful – the middle reminds me of too much pesto on a vegetarian pizza:

 

Image 7 – A very Christmassy one.  Wool on a washer with red sparkly yarn wrapped around it:

Chapter 7 – Buttons

I really enjoyed making buttons.  They resemble, to me, sweeties!  Yum!

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Chapter 6 – Tassels

Image 1 – Knotted fabric strips:

 

Image 2 – Wool with sequins on a thread:

 

Image 3 – My absolute favourite! Cords with beads on thread:

 

Image 4 – wool, dyed fabric strips, gold thread and dyed yarn:

 

Image 5 – As above but joined by machine stitching:

 

Image 6 – Close up of above tassel head:

Chapter 5 – Knotted, Plaited & Wrapped Methods

Now onto some knotting, plaiting and wrapping…

Image 1 – Wool knotted to make a cord:

 

Image 2 – Knotted wool to make a cord:

 

Image 3 – A machine cord knotted over a length of dyed twine:

 

Image 4 – machine cord knotted over a length of dyed twine with a bead string woven between the knots:

 

Image 5 – Machine cords knotted over dyed twine:

 

Image 6 – Two machine cords knotted over a length of dyed twine:

 

Image 7 – Using my trusty tape dispenser to weight down the end of the yarns as I plaited:

 

Image 8 – plaited yarns/cords.  The top two are three-yarn/cord plaits and the bottom two are 4-yarn/cord plaits:

 

Image 9 – Close up of four-chord plait:

 

Image 10 – Close up of three-chord plait:

 

Image 11 – Wrapped yarn around twisted cords:

 

Image 12 – Close up of machine cords wrapped in opposite directions around a twisted cord (this is my favourite cord!):

Image 13 – I tried very very hard a great number of times (with different yarns/cords) to make a turks’ head knot but failed miserably.  I gave up!:

Chapter 5 – Twisted Cords

There’s nothing more annoying than spinning round some yarn only to let go by mistake.  I lied.  There is something more annoying.  And that’s doing it 4 times in a row with the same bit of cord.  Infuriating it was!

Image 1 – Three twisted chords.  The top one has a gold thread running through it, the middle is a strip of fabric and the bottom is straight-forward wool:

I made more than three but I forgot to take a photo before I used them!

Chapter 5 – Machine Cords

With my machine showing its displeasure at free machining I was shocked to see that it actually rather liked making cords (and so did I!  I went into a cord frenzy!).

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Image 2 – A pile of cords (spot the clear tape on one of the cords – it made it easier to pass the sets of yarn through the straws):

Image 3  I was eating a packet of Mini Cheddars and decided to put the packet in a cord…:

Image 4 – Orange wasn’t originally in my colour scheme of greens and reds/pinks but I like it so I’ve added it!:

 

Image 5 – More cords:

Chapter 4 – Decorate with Stitchery

So with the fabric and yarn prepared it was time to stitch –huzzah!  I’m a big fan of running stitch.  I remember back to my level 2 C&G where I made a couple of kanthas.  So I decided to begin with spirals of running stitch.

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Image 2 – couching, running stitch and blanket stitch with different yarns:

Image 3 – couching sparkly yarn on a monoprinted fabric:

I have two sewing machines both of which get the hump whenever I try to free machine on them.  They become a bit like a dog wearing a medical cone collar when I put a darning plate on them (I can’t drop the feed dogs).  They become moody and refuse to do what you want.  I picked the less stroppy machine and managed to talk it into at least trying.

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You might have spotted that I don’t have a foot.  My machine didn’t come with one and the instructions for free machining in the manual don’t comment on the safety aspect at all!  It took all my concentration but I (mostly) managed to keep hold of the hoop with both hands and not get a pierced finger.  I have done free machining so I realise going faster is better but as you can see from the stitching here I took it slowly as otherwise the machine says “woah!  no way!”.  The results are pretty rubbish but I rejoiced that the machine vaguely did it.

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Image 7 – a few spiral attempts.  They started out well but degraded as time wore on:

Image 8 – I secretly like the bobbin thread looping through.  I did try all sorts of tension combinations (and checked the bobbin tension) but alas I always ended up with loopy bits after a while.  I embrace the loopy.  Sometimes you have to):

Image 9 – the next one started out quite well (or so I thought):

Image 10 – But when I turned over it wasn’t so splendid.  I quite like like the loopy bits though!:

Image 11 – I carried on regardless (but won’t show the back as it was a dreadful mess and the needle kept getting caught and at one point got stuck in the darning plate!):

I had a conversation with Siân at the summer school about machine embroidery.  I know that I enjoyed it when I’ve done it previously (on a lovely workhorse machine!) but my machines make it a painful experience I try to avoid wherever possible. 

Having said that…. my main machine took to cording like a duck to water!  More about that next.