Embroidery Project Update – Almost Finished!

Just a quick update on my corrent embroidery project, for those of you interested in taking a look. This is a hand-embroidered medallion for the back of a vestment. It’s supposed to be finished by the time I go to bed tonight! The lamb is finished, and now it’s just a matter of a few details and the outside edge, which will be couched in gold.

This embroidery project has been underway for about eight and a half weeks now. I calculate I’ve spent about 350 hours on it! Needless to say, outside of work, I haven’t been doing much else besides plying the needle!

Without further ado, here’s the update:

I have a tiny bit more outlining to do on the lamb, and a little area to fix on the neck next to the left side of the halo.

The eye looks a bit exaggerated, with the dark lines around it, but it will be viewed from far away, so it needs to show up! I wasn’t exactly satisfied with the inside of the eye, but it’s too late to go over it, and the overall effect is ok.

This is a close-up on the “wool.” The lamb is stitched with a stem-stitch filling, worked in two strands of Soie d’Alger, over which I worked flat silk by whipping little bits of the stem stitching. I also worked in, here and there, small rounded straight stitches.

Here’s a side angle, so you can see the effect of the gold which is couched over the sky.

Next step: finish outlining the lamb, then I’ll do the blood and the little flower details on the hill (tufts of grass and little flowers), and then couch the gold around the edge. It’s going to be a long day….!