A while back, I finished a lace border that I'm intending to embroider a table runner for. As a reminder, here's what it looked like:
It took me five years to finish it, though I only actively worked on it for about half that time. But still, it was a monumental effort for me and is almost 8 feet worth of lace. So whatever table runner I embroider to go with it needs to be worthy of that effort. I want a really exquisite design, even if takes quite a while.
A couple months ago, I ordered four different legacy linens from Needle in a Haystack to see what would go best with the lace. And I've narrowed it down to two based on color: a 45-count Florence linen in Ivory and a 37-count Sotema linen in Russian Tea Cake.
You may recall my initial sketch idea for this table runner looked like this:
The flowers aren't quite delicate enough for my tastes, but I liked other things about this pattern — specifically the combination of drawn thread work and surface embroidery. The Sotema linen would probably be easier to work with for the drawn thread work, but the higher thread count Florence linen would be a bit better for the surface embroidery details. Before I make a definitive choice, I decided I needed to practice some ideas on both linens to see how they turn out. I chose to work on a strip of the Florence linen first and started by doing the drawn thread work:
Because I'm not very good at weaving threads back into the fabric (they never look very nice to me), I decided not to start and stop the drawn thread sections as they are in the original pattern. I just did some little Hardanger corners and then added long sections of hemstitch coming out of these. This process took a while and is definitely a little tricky on this high thread count fabric, but I eventually got it done:
I think it turned out pretty nice, so I decided to sketch a rough pattern over it, figuring I could embroider across the hemstitch. (You'll also notice my new slate frame here. Yes, I ordered another frame. No, I don't know what my problem is. But isn't the frame gorgeous?! Lolz.)
Anyway, here's what I've accomplished so far:
And I kind of love it. Admittedly, my thread painting / silk shading on those leaves needs a bit of practice, but the lovely sweeping scrolls of stem stitch across all that hemstitch really speaks to me. I have to anchor the thread right in the edges of the hemstitch to get it to go across smoothly, but it's working fairly well.
I've just started adding some lavender buds on the right end. And the color is beautiful, but ehh, the stitching needs work. I'm really not sure what to do with those little buds. Maybe single lazy daisy stitches? Figure out a better way to do satin stitch? Change them to French knots. I really don't know, but that's what this practice piece is for — to figure out what works and what doesn't.
At some point, I will do another practice piece on the Sotema linen to see how well it works with both the drawn thread work and the surface embroidery. And hopefully after a couple of these, I'll have a better idea of exactly what I want to do. But I do think this practice pattern has a lot of potential. I think it would be lovely and elegant with the lace and hopefully complement rather than compete with it.
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