Phase 3: Woven Effect Leaf

I completed another new technique on a paulownia leaf this past weekend, this one in woven effect, which looks like a basket weave. I used a dark, wheat-colored silk in a 4-->1 twist for the main foundation of this leaf and began by stitching two weft foundation stitches and then skipping a space for one stitch:

To achieve the right amount of separation, I stitched each pair of stitches in weft valleys right next to each other. But when I tried to skip just one weft valley to leave a space for the skipped stitch, the stitches on either side filled the space up. So I ended up skipping two weft valleys between each pair of stitches. And that left just enough space for one stitch to be filled in later.

Next, I used my #1 iridescent green metal thread, half-hitched on the needle to stitch perpendicular lines across the foundation, 5mm apart:

Then, using my teal couching thread, I couched each line down in the open spaces, 1cm apart, alternating stitches on each row:

After completing that step, it was time to fill in the skipped stitches. Using the same 4-->1T foundation thread, I stitched in the missing weft stitches:

The final step was to couch these stitches down between the metal thread rows. The couching technique for this involved a row of back stitches to hold down the newly added threads, which is done kind of like this:

The circles are the threads lying on the fabric. And the blue line is the way the couching stitches are made. I hope it's clear from this rather rough diagram. Anyway, here's what the first row of couching stitches looked like (just a little left of center):

I thought this looked pretty good. My tutor said the most important thing is to try to keep the couching stitches even so that it looks like a straight dotted line. I did this mainly by sticking the needle partway up through the fabric and laying it down towards the previous stitches to make sure it was even with them. That seemed to work fairly well. Also, after pulling the needle up through the fabric, I held it taut when placing the needle back down to make sure the needle and thread were evenly placed, exactly perpendicular to the weft. Here is what it looked like when I was halfway done (the left side is complete):

I was quite pleased with how this was coming along, so I pressed on to the right side. And here is the completed woven effect technique:

I think it looks pretty great. 😊 And it goes really well with the 3D effect leaf to its left:

The colors are a nice match, and they're both really visually interesting stitches with a lot of depth. However, I'm actually not quite finished with the woven effect paulownia leaf. It needs a border added around the entire thing, but I still need to learn how to make my own katayori thread before I can do that. So I'm setting this aside for now and moving back to my tie-dye effect paulownia leaf. Look for my next post on that!