Mostly Take It Further

A trip to an antique show this weekend sparked an idea. While browsing I found two issues of Corticelli's needlework publication, 1898 and 1899. This photo shows the front of one and the back of the other. I love these publications.

Each one features different stitches. They often include common stitches with uncommon (today) names and also stitches I've never seen elsewhere. The color images are mostly of needlepainted flowers.

At the back of one of the issues, there was an article about crocheting over oval and circular shapes and appliqueing them to fabric for sort of a lace effect. It wasn't terribly appealing but it began a thought train.

In the past, in various antiques shops, I've seen envelopes with small card initials that were made to be stitched over on fabric. I assume the cardboard would act like the padding for padded satin stitch. It gave a more integrated but similar effect to the oval and round pieces used in the booklet.

I made some intertwined initials, playing around with this month's TIF, and liked the idea of a monogram like this.

I'd like it to be large, to fill the journal page but also knew I'd never get so much stitching done in padded satin stitch. So then I thought about the cardboard thing. And decided to use that as a technique. I've printed the intertwined initials below onto cover weight paper and plan to stitch over that for my page this month.

I think I may use the bok choy "rose" printed fabric I made recently (here) as the background fabric. I'm not quite sure yet what colors I will use for the initials. White is traditional and I think perhaps two very pale tints might be fresh, but I like the contrast in the artwork and want to preserve that. I'll have to play with flosses. I do think I will use plain solid color floss on the busy background.

Now that I have a plan, I need to get to work!

P.S. I often post these photos and additional photos to my Flickr page: Marjorie from Illinois. Photos are often there days before they make it up here.