Casalguidi

Back last month, or the month before maybe, wonderful mum and I went to another embroidery workshop at The Living Threads group.  This was a Casalguidi class.  This article for Mary Corbet at Needle 'n Thread explains a bit about it and has a tutorial for the raised bands.

We started with a piece of white linen and some white Perle cotton in sizes 8 and 5.  It was to be a needle case or a small bag which is why I've only stitched on half of it.  We started with four-sided stitch to make a border.

Then added in a grid of four-sided stitch in the centre.  No Blogger, I have not spelled centre wrong, when will you learn that I am English!

Then we started the raised band.  We used some random threads that the wonderful teacher (alas, I don't remember her name) gave us and couched them down in a rough circle on top of the grid.

Then we did a close satin stitch in the perle 8 all the way round.

This was overlaid with supposedly-evenly-spaced stitches which we would use to form the stem-stitch on top.

Below I have done 2 rows of stem stitch, I will keep going until the circle is full up.

Honestly, I will.  I just need to get some other bits and pieces started finished first...  There is more to this in the form of bullion knots (my firsts ever!) and needlewoven picots, but I do need a bit more practice before I add any of those to this piece.

We also made a button using just thread and bullion knots.... no idea where the photos went though I gave the finished button to mum as she declared she wasn't making one!

Keep your eyes peeled for this finished piece in, oh, say 2 or 3 years?