Table Runner Design

Soooo, it's been a while since I've blogged about my lace-trimmed table runner. You've probably forgotten all about it. Or you may not even have known this blog existed the last time I wrote about it. So here's a quick little recap and update.

I make bobbin lace from time to time, and at one point, I spent actual years making 8 feet of Torchon lace to trim a still-to-be-embroidered table runner. Here's the finished lace:

I love it, and I wanted to design a suitable table runner that I could trim with it. So a few months ago, I spent some time embroidering practice pieces on sample fabrics to see what fabric and design I might like to go with the lace. Here is the first practice piece I did, with the lace laid alongside it to give the full effect:

I really like this fabric — it's a 45-ct. Florence legacy linen and stitches up beautifully. The drawn thread work is a little tricky to do on it, but it was definitely still doable, so I think this fabric achieves the right balance. I also loved the color scheme and the overall design concept of this piece. But I didn't like all of the stitching techniques and styles of flowers. I had intentionally done a wide variety of stitches and flowers to see what I would like best. (If you're interested, you can read more about the details here.)

On my second practice piece, I used a 37-ct. Sotema legacy linen and simplified the design and the types of stitches a lot:

I think it's nice, and I like that there aren't so many flower types. The drawn thread work was also a little easier to do on this linen, but the fabric isn't as a tight a weave as I like for surface embroidery. And when it comes down to it, I prefer the overall design from the first one. It has more swoops around the rows of hemstitch and a bit more variety in the leaf placement. I also think the thread painting on the leaves in the first one is prettier (though I need to practice that technique a bit).

So in the end, I decided to use the 45-ct. Florence linen for the final table runner, and, in fact, I purchased a full yard of the fabric for it ages ago (it was very pricey — over $50 — but it's definitely worth it). In August, I ordered a second, very large Millennium frame and the Necessaire stand just so I could complete this design. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm hoping it will in the next couple of months. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I decided to work on creating the final design. I wanted to do something more similar to the first design, with the additional swoops and curlicues, as well as some leaves and flowers outside the two rows of drawn thread. I went through several drafts. And unfortunately, at one point, I somehow got my measurements wrong and left out a good six inches of design. Sigh. But here's a fun look at some of my drafts in progress:

Once I remembered the table runner needs to be 24" long, not 18" long, I hacked up the design, added new sections, tweaked old ones, and then cobbled it altogether to fit the 14" x 24" space inside the lace. Here's my final design (probably):

I really like it overall. I think it's relatively simple, but elegant. It also complements but doesn't compete too much with the lace. The squares in the corners will be Hardanger squares with dove's eyes in them, and the lines between them will be hemstitch. The twisting vine will be stem stitch (or maybe raised stem stich?), and the flowers will be satin stitch, probably with French knot centers. The leaves will be thread painted if I can improve my technique enough. I have a ways to go. 😓

But ... in the time since I first stitched those two practice pieces, I have discovered Au Ver à Soie silk threads, which means ... yep, another practice piece! I want to see how this design looks in silk, and it will give me a chance to practice raised stem stitch and improve my thread painting skills for the leaves. I bought another fat quarter of the Florence linen from the Attic Needlework shop for just this purpose.

But I will probably wait to do it till I finish my Jacobean piece (because I want to use my Millennium frame that currently holds that piece). I'm really looking forward to it, though. I think this is going to come together really nicely and hopefully be a lovely heirloom piece to pass down to someone.