The little goldwork dots in the outside edge of the Medallion are under way again. There are 50 of these little dots in the edge, and they’re worked in a combination of pearl purl (for the outline) and chips (little cuts of check purl) for the filling.

If there weren’t 50 of these dots to contend with, I’d say they weren’t too time consuming. The dots are about 5/16″ – 3/8″ in diameter, so they’re pretty small. This makes manipulating the pearl purl (which is a stiff thread) somewhat slightly less than fun. Actually, every time I finish a dot, I find myself saying, “Bah – that wasn’t so bad!” and I move on to the next fiddly little blighter with an ever-increasing excitement at being one step closer to the end.

Today, I’ll show you how I work the pearl purl outlines and talk a little bit about working with this versatile and beautiful real metal thread.

The Medallion Project is dragging out a bit longer than I had hoped! I did not meet my First Personal Deadline (which was Easter), nor my Second Personal Deadline (which was April 15), and now I’m pushing my Last Personal Deadline and Final Deadline of All (mid-May). I must be finished around May 15, because it has to be turned over the vestment-maker, to meet the June deadline. So it’s down to the wire! (No pun intended!) This may turn into a nail-biter!

Today I’d like to show you how I changed the order of work on the roses, and give you my reasoning behind that. You can apply the same principals to any embroidery – sometimes, you just have to change the “normal” order of work, due to some logical reason. I’m also going to show you the back of the goldwork, because this figures into my reasoning for changing the order of work.