Completing the Cherry Blossoms and Chrysanthemums Piece

Remember how I said I was going to leave those chrysanthemum leaves till the very end? Well, famous last words. They bugged me too much. So I decided to just take them out and redo them using all the helpful tips my JE acquaintances had given me. I started by stitching the first leaf in horizontal foundation instead of weft foundation:

I was actually pretty proud of this leaf. I could have captured certain curves better, but I did pretty well on the lower edge, and the stitching turned out beautifully smooth. 

I said I wouldn't bother doing a tissue transfer to put in the vein lines ... and then I decided to try it anyway. 😂 Just to see. So I traced the pattern on the quilting paper and then stitched it down around the leaf to hold it in place:

I then used the line of held thread technique to create the guidelines for the veins. To do this, I went up at the base of the main vein line and down at the tip of it. Then, using the same needle and thread, I carefully couched the line into place so it followed the curve. I used white silk couching thread and a number 3 machine-made couching needle, which gave a nice thin stitching guideline:

I then tore the paper away to leave just the stitched guidelines. This wasn't wholly successful, as some of the vein lines came a bit loose (this also happened to me when I did the stitch transfer on my Jacobean piece):

A JE teacher told me later that you can poke the paper along the lines with the tekobari to help loosen and tear it and then remove it with tweezers. A good tip for next time.

Now it was time to start couching the silver down to make the actual veins. I didn't explain this in detail the last time I did these leaves, so I will give some more details here in case it helps anyone trying to learn this like I am.

The needle eye tends to strip the thin silver paper from around its thread core, so you can't just thread it through; you have to use a half-hitch knot. To do this, you just pinch the doubled end of the silver thread (since it's worked in pairs anyway) and thread the loop end through the needle eye:

Once the loop is through the eye, just poke the needle through the loop, like so:

And then pull tight! Now you have a half-hitch knot that will stay snug and not slide up and down the silver thread, stripping the silver paper away:

I used a number 9 handmade needle for the silver because it creates a slightly larger hole in the fabric, which helps keep the fabric from rubbing too hard against the silver thread and stripping it that way. I used a number 7 handmade needle for the flat silk, which seemed to be the right size for one strand (with 16 suga, or filaments, in it).

Anyway, the next step was to knot the end of the silver pair of threads and bring the needle up through the silk leaf at the base of the guideline I had stitched. Then I used a trick a JE teacher had told me about. I wrapped my koma (the little wooden spools) with a thick elastic hair tie (don't use a plain rubber band; it can damage your needle) and stuck the needle in the little crossed part to hold it:

I then wrapped the silver thread around the spool until it held it reasonably taut:

The koma held my silver firm while I couched down over it with the white silk couching thread. It was kind of like a third hand. I could still pull the thread below my frame with my left hand. I did have to move the koma a few times with my left hand to follow the curve of the vein, but this was fine. I also, at some point, switched to holding the koma with my left hand and sewing entirely with my right. This is probably wrong, but it worked fine for me. When I got to the end of a vein line, I just unwound the spool, removed the needle, and took it through to the back of the fabric: 

I did this for all the veins on that leaf. Though for one very short vein, I didn't use the koma at all because I didn't feel like winding and unwinding the silver thread for such a short vein. I just held it taut in my left hand and stitched the three couching stitches required with my right hand (top and bottom). 

It worked fine and is a good option if you can't afford koma yet. Because let's be real, all these JE tools are nice, but they're pricey, and they're not all strictly necessary for a beginner. You can make some minor adjustments and still get good results.

Anyway, once I had finished couching the silver down, some of the loose guidelines showed through, so I had to snip them away very carefully. But my vein lines turned out beautifully smooth this time:

That picture is a little blurry; sorry about that. But you can still see that the vein lines are neat and stand out from the silk thread really well. Much better than last time! 

On the next leaf, I used the same method but decided to just eyeball the vein lines rather than using the stitch transfer method. It didn't seem to make a difference, as I had strongly suspected it wouldn't in my last JE post. I did still use the koma for most of the vein lines because it's a little easier than using your hand (except for very short lines), and I felt like that helped keep the veins smooth and curved on both leaves. Here are the two leaves completed:

Both leaves turned out much better this time. There is one little area on the lower leaf where I took the needle down to the back in the wrong spot and it pulled the silk thread a bit. But now that I know how that happens, I can be more careful in the future.

In the above photo, you can also see that I completed the first wave design in silver at the bottom. I actually did that before I redid the leaves. It's called diagonal filling, but it's very similar to stem stitch, and as you move to the right of each wave line, it actually becomes your basic stem stitch. It's just a little thicker on the left side edge to start. It's a simple, but elegant and pretty detail.

After finishing the leaves, though, it was time to finish that third chrysanthemum. One of the JE teachers I talked to (more about JE teachers in a future post) told me that you actually start at the base or the tip of each petal, rather than in the middle (as the kit says to, and as satin stitch is traditionally done). So I tried that on several of the petals:

It was easier on a couple of petals, but not on all. To be honest, I don't know that I was very successful with my chrysanthemum petals, regardless of where I started stitching them. But I have been credibly informed by many Japanese embroiderers that chrysanthemums are hard, particularly when you're starting out. Still, I don't think it looks so bad. And from three feet away, it looks pretty damn good. 😂

Then I did the second wave using a pair of silver threads, sewn in diagonal filling or stem stitch, and the piece was almost finished:

It looks basically done, but there was one more tiny element to do. The kit didn't give any explicit instructions on this, but the photograph that came with the kit showed little silver stamens on the cherry blossoms. And I thought it would make the flowers look more complete, so I decided to add those as a finishing touch. 

A JE teacher told me there are two ways to make stamens: one line from the center of each petal that stretches to the space opposite that petal (between two other petals), for a total of five lines, or 10 stamens; or the JEC way, with 8 evenly spaced lines that end up at random points on the petals and spaces between them, for a total of 16 stamens. There's a little transparent guideline to help you do it the JEC way, but I didn't have it, so I just went with the five lines to make 10 stamens, since I could do that evenly on my own just by following the petals. And I think it turned out rather nice:

They just look a little more polished, a little more complete. And that little touch finished the piece nicely. I know there are mistakes in this piece (believe me, I know it; I took out 2/3 of all the stitches I put in and redid them, sometimes multiple times). But this was the best I could do with my current skills, and I think it is beautiful! The pattern and colors and details are so delicate and feminine and lovely. 

From the day I started stitching to the day I put in the last stitch, it took me 36 days, usually stitching three to four days a week. I think it took me about 25 hours total, which is insane for a design that barely measures 5" x 7". But it was a pretty big learning curve, even with all my regular surface embroidery experience. Silk threads are just hard to handle. I have learned a ton, though, and I feel really proud of what I've accomplished. I don't think it's a bad start for a first JE piece. The next one I'm going to do will involve some new challenges (twisting my own silk thread!), but I hope it will be better than this one because I'm a little more experienced now.