Laying tool or scootching tool?

First, a definition: scootch – to move a small amount without standing up (of a person) or lifting from a surface (of an object). In this case, scootch without lifting the object, namely, the thread.

I’m moving along on the Royal Persian Blossom project and finished another section yesterday. The flowers, stem and leaves were all straight forward. The stem is (big surprise here!) done in stem stitch and the littl flowers and leaves in satin stitch. Well, maybe modified and quick satin stitch.

I used 5 short stitches for the flowers and two for the leaves. I didn’t outline or pad either the flowers or the leaves. The wool is thick enough and the shapes are small enough that this worked just fine.

At the top of the section are two areas of button hole stitch worked on a curve. I love buttonhole stitch, especially when it’s worked close together so it look like satin stitch with a frilly edge. But sometimes I can’t make the endge perfectly even across the top. It looks too frilly. (If I’m honest, it just looks a little crooked.)

Using my laying tool. I gently (very gently!) scootched the top of the buttonhole stitched area either up or down so it was even all the way across. When I was pretty happy with the top edge, I then gently (very gently!) ran the tip of the scootching/laying tool along the outside edge of the buttonhole stitches, sliding the laying tool from one end to the other, smoothing the stitches into a more even row.

BEFORE SCOOTCHING

AFTER SCOOTCHING

 The pattern is much busier than the Marriage Pillowe and coming back to it has been a bit of a shock. It’s so much more densely worked with loads of design elements in a very small space. I love both designs, but they are very very different from one another.

 Now back to work on the Gentleman’s Cap. I haven’t been working on it much lately because it’s so dark when I get home it’s difficult to see it properly, even with my magnifying lamp. There just isn’t enough general light for me to feel confident making those tiny stitches with silk. However, this weekend the problem was solved. Stay tuned…

You might also like:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 at 07:30. It is filed under Embroidery, Royal Persian Blossom and tagged with Royal Persian Blossom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.