Trevelyon's Gold Cap - a little black!
Gosh it's nice to have time to stitch...not a squeezed hour here or there but whole days, one after the other, to embroider as long as I like. School holidays can be just wonderful...even when your husband is in the Caribbean (sun, sand, water, boats, sun, sun, sun) and you're in Germany (grey, clouds, rain, sun!, grey, clouds, rain, rain, grey, rain, colder). But I wouldn't trade these peaceful days of embroidering for anything right now.I've added some black stitches inside the leaf I had been outlining in passing thread. I decided try out some black stitches before I went any further with the gold outline. Normally I wouldn't stitch in this order, but I'm play and experimenting and, why not?
I tried three different threads for the black seeding: first, I used black silk from The Silk Mill. It's lovely silk, but for this particular piece it was too thick. My stitches weren't of even width which I didn't like very much. The black silk thread is stitched in the bottom left of the leaf in the photo above.The next thing I tried was an unusual choice - DMC Diamant thread in solid black. This thread is a synthetic thread and therefor doesn't ravel or come untwisted so the stitches were a lot 'cleaner' and of a more uniform appearance. You can see those few stitch wight he solid black Diamant thread to the right of the point where the veins of the leaf cross.As I was working with the solid black, I remember that I'd ordered some DMC Diamant thread that is gold and black so I thought "Why not? I'm playing around so let's see what this looks like". Those stitches are the ones at the top right of the leaf where you can see tiny specks of gold shining through.
Of course, being a girl who loves all thing sparkly, I choose to do all of the seeding using the gold and black Diamant Thread. You can see in the photo above the pretty effect the thread has on the sparkle of the leave and how it highlights the gold passing thread that surrounds the edge of the leaf. The thread I used is DMC D140 Diamant thread. Photo below.
When I finished the seeding (and was so pleased with how it looked!) I decided to add a few back stitches on either side of the gold veins. The Diamant thread isn't as thick as the gold passing thread so it lies a bit lower than the passing thread. This means the gold passing thread is still the star of the show with the Diamant D140 being a pretty special supporting actress!
Here's a photo of how the piece looks thus far. I'm really pleased with how it looks and am excited to do the other black and gold leaf.The next thread I'll try for more blackwork in different leaves will be a single strand of good old DCM cotton. I think (and hope!) it will be perfect. Watch this space!