A quick hint on tools for wire bending. I started out with the red handled size - a cheap kit for beading from the craft store - and then moved up to real tools from Home Depot. They aren't great tools, they came in a box with lots of hand tools and most were bigger, but the whole set was only $12 (around Christmas) so it seemed like a good deal to me. The larger pliers are much easier to use, so treat yourself to decent tools.
So yesterday, I had a lovely stretch of time after work and completed my Tudor Rose. For the sepals, I used green paper wrapped florists wire. In this case, because of the sharp tips, I bent the wire first.
Then I tacked down the wire and started doing a long button hole over the wire to form the sepals.
I had to stop in the middle of it all because two more baby geckos were born. We are up to 9 babies, 2 adults (in separate habitats) and one egg, due to hatch in a month. The female seems to be gravid again - we found out they can store sperm for a year so who knows how many more eggs will appear.
Back to the stitching. I used bullion picot along the tips of the sepals to simulate the jagged edge of the sepals.
The cutting out was easy and it was no trouble getting close. I am very happy with the neat edges formed by my non-woven material, whatever it actually is called. I'll have to carry a sample with me so I can check whenever I go to a fabric store. (or I'll have to change the brand of sanitary napkins we use in the house) While you do have to be careful not to create huge holes in the material, it did form the nice edge I expected.
And here is the completed rose on the box top. Not the final placement, just a test, since I plan on adding more decoration and the rose would get in the way. I just poked a hole through the material, padding and cardboard base, for those who wonder how it got there. I'll glue a piece of felt to the underside of the lid to hide the wires when it is done. DD the younger pointed out that it was off center, but I actually meant it to be, part of the design I have planned, so stay tuned.
So yesterday, I had a lovely stretch of time after work and completed my Tudor Rose. For the sepals, I used green paper wrapped florists wire. In this case, because of the sharp tips, I bent the wire first.
Then I tacked down the wire and started doing a long button hole over the wire to form the sepals.
I had to stop in the middle of it all because two more baby geckos were born. We are up to 9 babies, 2 adults (in separate habitats) and one egg, due to hatch in a month. The female seems to be gravid again - we found out they can store sperm for a year so who knows how many more eggs will appear.
Back to the stitching. I used bullion picot along the tips of the sepals to simulate the jagged edge of the sepals.
The cutting out was easy and it was no trouble getting close. I am very happy with the neat edges formed by my non-woven material, whatever it actually is called. I'll have to carry a sample with me so I can check whenever I go to a fabric store. (or I'll have to change the brand of sanitary napkins we use in the house) While you do have to be careful not to create huge holes in the material, it did form the nice edge I expected.
And here is the completed rose on the box top. Not the final placement, just a test, since I plan on adding more decoration and the rose would get in the way. I just poked a hole through the material, padding and cardboard base, for those who wonder how it got there. I'll glue a piece of felt to the underside of the lid to hide the wires when it is done. DD the younger pointed out that it was off center, but I actually meant it to be, part of the design I have planned, so stay tuned.
7 comments:
What a very interesting way of doing the picots!!!!!
You have done two different types of picots? Loose (in the centre for a little way) and then the bullion ones?
Just FYI, as per the original extant item pic, my rose has one layer on the ground, then two equally sized (and each slightly rotated) layers that are slightly smaller than the ground layer, then another two equally sized layers, slightly smaller again.
The ground layer was done in long and short stitch. When I do it again this way, I'd do detached buttonhole, because the light refracts from the silk in a different way in L&S stitch than it does with detached buttonhole, so the ground layer looks a bit different to the rest in colouring
My picots will be open base picots - but your use of wire has made me think, because some of the picots certainly stick up in the image of the original http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=604811961&context=set-72157600455734204&size=l
I've made two comments (this is the third). The second isn't showing up, unless I bring up this comment box again (?! murrfle?)
I've love more detail on the picots. I've never done a picot.
i wonder if two layers of the non-woven material would work better with the hole issue. I am going to try this idea - next month :).
I, too, an interested in how you did the sepals - it looks to be a combo of the bullion picots, the buttonhole stitch, and wrapped wire down the centre - is this right?
Yeah - some buttonhole stitch with really long loops (for the first part of the sepal).
Hi, Paula, dear.
Have a look at http://genvieve.pbworks.com/English+Embroidered+Bookbindings+-+Plate+2
Right in the centre - "Double red rose with detached petals" (says in blurb below" (from Davenport's book on bookbinding). Picots are just like yours - all pointy and jagged.
That wiki is WONDERFUL!!! Just what I needed, lots of close up photos of Elizabethan motifs that I can try to recreate. Really, it is just what I need. The roses are great, but the birds! I think the next satin box needs one of those!
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