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Friday, July 9, 2010

Friday Finish: My first Hardanger

In the spirit of the Hardanger piece I'm working on now, I present the very first Hardanger design I ever stitched.

Design: a runner made from doubling the bellpull design from Cross 'N Patch's Charity Sampler booklet

Designer: Emie Bishop

Technique: Hardanger and cross stitch

Ground fabric: 32ct evenweave (jobelan, maybe?)

Threads: pearl cotton and floss

Stitches used: cross stitch, kloster blocks, buttonhole, lacy edge, bullions, dove's eyes, spider webs, other filling stitches

Stitching timeframe: Finished in 1996. I'm guessing I worked on and off on this for a year, given that I was in college at the time.

This was my first Hardanger piece, as I mentioned above. It is a prime example of the attitude of "It's just string." Or it could have been simple ignorance. Take your pick.

  • I didn’t think it was a big deal to essentially stitch the bellpull (which consisted of two of the diamond repeats and the heart at the bottom) twice.
  • I didn't know lacy edge and bullions were supposed to be difficult.
  • I do recall vigilantly checking the alignment of my kloster blocks before cutting any threads, but I don't really remember any anxiety about cutting the threads once I knew everything lined up.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that I should have practiced bullion knots on a doodle cloth before putting them on the real piece. In this picture, you can see the little squares made up of bullion knots on the right, where I started, and those on the left, where I finished after going all the way around the piece. There is a very distinct difference in tension!

I don’t really recall having much difficulty with the lacy edge, but to this day, I haven’t used this stitch on any other piece.

Here’s a close up of one of the ends of the design.

I should find a place to display this rather than keeping it in my cedar chest. Maybe a high shelf where little fingers can’t reach.

5 comments:

Sylvia said...

Jeanne, How about mounting it on a black velvet backing and framing it. It would look stunning hung on the wall and it would be safe from harm. BTW it is absolutely gorgeous!!!

Karen said...

Jeanne, this piece is simply stunning. It's wonderful. And tension aside, I think you deserve a gold medal just for DOING all those bullion knots!!!

MeganH said...

Definitely display it! :-)

Katrina said...

What a gorgeous finish, it's so delicate and pretty. Congrats.

Katrina said...

I should say, I would find a way to display it.