Deadlines can be a great motivator to wrapping up a project. There will be a bit of midnight oil burned this weekend in the Studio here at Ecclesiastical Sewing trying to complete both the Chalice Veil and the Stole to be used for Ash Wednesday Service this coming week. Regretfully, the day job has turned into massive overtime, limiting free time to work on projects. But today, some progress was made. The above photo shows a metallic ribbon being used for the diagonal at the center of the cross. The reason for the ribbon? It is a little wider at 1/16″ so one piece worked out perfectly. It is shiny, and looks nice with the gold metallic of the Wakefield Fabric being used for Orphreys on this project.
The other thread in the above photo is a fine braid size 8 from Kreinik. The reason for selecting the fine braid is that it will pass easily in and out of the linen to the next line for the trellis stitch without having to plunge and secure two tails on every row. There just is not time for the use of a gold thread requiring plunging of thread tails.
A few little trick make it easy to work with the Kreinik Metallic Braids. The first and most important: keep your thread lengths short! A good rule of thumb is to have the length be shorter than the distance from your hand to your elbow. Next, after pulling the thread through, give a little extra tug to make sure everything pulled through. Then feel the bottom side for any hanging threads, lumps, bumps, or bulges. Using bees-wax to coat the metallic braid is not a good idea with this thread as it would damage the thread which is very textured.
When working the Trellis Stitch, be very accurate with measuring, marking and stitching. I elected to stitch everything in one direction before starting on the cross work.
The Trellis work goes rather fast, and changes the look of the hand embroidery design. I was not sure about this stitching, but now that it is complete, it looks very nice. The rigid lines are a nice contrast to the floral motif on the Wakefield fabric.
At last, the Trellis Stitching is completed; and the next step is going back to secure stitching at the Trellis intersections.
Solo Dei Gloria
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Filed under: Ash Wednesday, Ash Wednesday Vestments, Ecclesiastical Embroidery, Ecclesiastical Sewing, Hand embroidery Tagged: Ash Wednesday, Ash Wednesday Vestments, Black Passion Cross, Ecclesiastical Embroidery, Ecclesiastical Sewing, Hand embroidery, Kreinik Metallic Threads, Trellis Stitching
