Phase 1: Bamboo Stalk Completed

I had my Japanese embroidery lesson on Sunday with Tonie, and we covered the remaining elements on my phase 1 piece. I didn't have much time for stitching that day, though, as I went on a long, lovely hike with my sister:

Arizona is so beautiful this time of year! I really love the wide open spaces.

I did eventually return to my JE, though. I worked on the bamboo stalk the last couple of evenings and finally completed it. It was a bit easier after my lesson because Tonie gave me some helpful tips. The first thing she suggested was to put the katayori on my koma:

When I wasn't working with it, I tied a knot at the end to keep the katayori from unraveling (which it is apparently prone to do). For some sections of the stalk (the bigger bamboo trunk), I laid two threads at once, using both koma:

I couched over every bump in the katayori for two or three bumps at the beginning and at the end to make sure it was secure. But in the middle, I only couched over every second bump:

For these double rows of katayori, I followed Tonie's suggestion and started one line (since one was always longer than the other), then added the second, and couched over them together. This helped keep the lines tight and even next to each other. Occasionally, I had to tug or slightly twist one line to get them to nestle together closely enough, but this was rare. They turned out much more even and tidy looking this way, so I went back and redid some of the ones I had previously done.

For the single lines, I also couched over two or three bumps at either end and every other bump in the middle:

Tonie had suggested I wait till I had couched all my lines to sink the ends and to just tie knots in the ends to keep them from unraveling in the meantime. But I couldn't bear to do this. I hate sinking ends and to have the added work of tying a bunch of knots in each end and then having to sink dozens at one time would have driven me crazy. It was much more manageable and less frustrating for me to sink the ends every time I completed a line of the stalk. But this is just a personal preference thing. YMMV.

Tonie taught me how to create a sinking needle to help with the wretched process. I had just been using my #11 needle on its own, but it was tricky to thread it with the katayori. So instead, I threaded the needle with a strand of flat silk halfway through. Then I undertwisted each half and overtwisted them together to permanently attach the silk to the needle. Next, I threaded the tail through the eye to create a loop:

This was my sinking needle. When it was time to sink an end, I stuck the needle into the spot where I wanted the end to go and threaded the end through the loop (hopefully you can see it):

I didn't thread the whole katayori through the loop, though. I kept a tiny segment free, like this:

You can see the little loop it created as I pulled the sinking needle down. This is the same technique for plunging ends in goldwork. This way, the pressure is further down the katayori, on a segment that will be on the back of the fabric in case it gets damaged when you tug it through.

Using the sinking needle helped a lot, but there were a few times where it was still really tricky to sink the ends. I had to pull fairly hard and fiddle with it a lot till it finally went down, in a begrudging and resentful fashion. It was a real workout to fight with my sinking needle! 😂

But I eventually finished couching all the bamboo stalk lines and sinking the ends. Here's how the stalk looks now:

I think it turned out really well. I'm not sure all the lines are perfectly straight, though I did measure multiple times. But I think it turned out pretty good overall. And hell, bamboo is not necessarily ramrod straight in real life, so I think it's fine. It really does help tie all the bamboo leaves, plum blossoms, and pine needles together. And I'm loving this piece more than ever now!

Just the plum blossom stamens and the skyline left to do now!