“Duc” is Done & Deep – Some Embroidery Progress

When time allows, I’ve been working on this embroidered maniturgium project, which involves embroidered lettering.

My plan, goal, hope, intention was to embroider the letters so that they impart the notion of deepening water, and I think it’s working out!

Little secret: I can’t look at this project right now without developing a Gene Chandler ear worm for Duke of Earl. This is problematic, especially for Anna, as there’s simply no escape when we’re both working in the studio. I tend to spontaneously burst into song – and any song that’s in my head pops out unannounced. I haven’t been able to get Duke of Earl out of my head for weeks.

“Duc” is Done. It’s come off pretty deep, as intended, and I find that I like it!

The c was the most difficult of the letters to stitch, because its shape really doesn’t lend to vertical top-down stitching. I really wanted to follow the curve of the letter.

Additionally, the letter leans back a bit, due to the “rustic” nature of the ancient-biblical-esque look of the lettering that I was hoping to achieve. As I was stitching it, I felt oddly disoriented. I kept wanting to turn the hoop.

I’m liking the blues much more than I thought I would.

You might remember when I was first deciding on the colors, here. I was afraid my palette wasn’t as deep-water-ish as I’d like.

But I like the blues. They are pretty. And I think they impart that notion of deepening water just fine.

You can see that, in the hoop, out top of the ground fabric, I have another layer of fabric with a “window” cut out of it, revealing the embroidery surface.

This is a layer of plain cotton scrap.

I placed the inner ring of the hoop on the table, the embroidery ground fabric (linen) with the design on it, centered to reveal this whole section of the word “duc” over the inner ring, and then covered that with a piece of cotton scrap.

Then, the outer ring of the hoop went on and both layers of fabric were tightened in the hoop.

Then I used a pin to pull the cotton layer away from the linen layer, and I snipped a hole in the cotton. From there, I carefully cut out an inner window from the cotton, so that I could access the linen, leaving a nice edge of cotton around the hoop area.

This helps protect the ground fabric. Especially if you’re holding a hoop in hand, it’s easy for oils and a dust ring to form around hooped work. I didn’t want to take that risk – I don’t want to wash this piece once it’s finished – so I’m taking every precaution to keep the linen fabric pristine.

I’m not working in hand much. I’ve been using my Potoky stand for this project, as well as this magnifier, and this light (the Stella Go) for additional let. The set up is perfect for me and is working out really well.

So this portion of the maniturgium is out of the hoop and I’m ready to hoop up the next word (“in”). Yay! I’d like to have “in” finished by the end of the week.

I’m really only picking this up once or twice a week at this point, due to other projects and lots of behind-the-scenes work. But progress is progress, and I’m happy with it so far.

Hope your week is off to a great start!