Phase 1: Bamboo Stalks and Katayori Thread

In my last post, I was at a standstill on my leaves, needles, and blossoms because I needed to do the bamboo stalk first. The bamboo stalk is supposed to be done by couching down katayori thread. 

Katayori is twisted thread where unequal amounts of undertwisted thread are overtwisted together, resulting in a thick, kinky (or rippled) thread. So if you wanted a 5-->1 katayori, instead of undertwisting two sets of 2.5 threads, you would undertwist 4.5 threads, undertwist 0.5 thread, and then overtwist those unequal threads together.

But katayori is apparently tricky to make well, so for my phase 1 piece, I am just using already-made katayori from the JEC. Mine is composed of dark brown, warm maroon-brown, and gold:

I've done couching with goldwork and silk gimp before, so I thought this would be pretty easy. I was hoping I could just drag the katayori thread down through the fabric and stitch it back up again so that I didn't have to sink and secure so many thread ends on the back.

Sadly, this hope was in vain. After spending an hour on it, I can safely say it is my least favorite part of JE so far. The thread is so thick and difficult to work with. I'm using a size 11 handmade needle, but there's no possibility of pulling it through the silk fabric for more than a short length. I tried and had partial strands of the thread break, the whole katayori unravel, or inch-long sections bunch up. Sigh.

So I am just going to have to secure a bunch of ends later on. If it's just a short length - like two inches, I can get away with plunging it down and back up again, but only once. Anymore than that and it unravels, bunches, or breaks. 

Having to sink the threads is particularly irritating because on the larger of the two bamboo stalks, I have to couch down two threads side-by-side to make it appear thicker. That's a lot of threads to sink and secure. Here's some of it in progress:

I didn't think it looked great at this point, but I hoped that maybe from a distance it would look okay. Here's that small section on the left after I finished it:

It isn't too bad overall, but I do not like doing it. So much so that I couldn't bear to do all of it at once. I decided to just do the sections I had to so I could finish stitching all the other elements in the background. So I did the small section on the upper right (and some sections toward the bottom of the piece). Then I finished that bamboo leaf at the top and the plum blossom petals on the lower left:

I think that actually looks quite pretty. It's hard to couch this rippled thread down in a straight line, but it will probably look very nice when it's all done. Still, I've decided to do the rest of the katayori later. Maybe I'll do one small section at a time — like 15 minutes a day — until it's all done. That way I can get through it without having to sit down and do it all at once. I just don't have the patience for it right now. 😕

I guess there had to be something I didn't like about JE. But I'm making such swift progress on this piece this week that I entertain high hopes of finishing phase 1 by the end of January. It will be time to order phase 2 soon. Very exciting!