Phase 4: Central Petals

I had Japanese embroidery lessons last weekend and finally got to start stitching Karahana. And I think it's going to be beautiful!

The first step was to start stitching the small central petals — which are about the size of my pinkie nail. They're padded, so I got out my lifetime supply of white cotton padding and put four strands doubled through the eye of a #9 needle. Then I stitched a vertical layer using ladder stitch (to avoid unnecessary padding on the back side):

I stroked the cotton the way I would stroke flat silk so that it would lie as flat as possible. After I did this layer, I did another perpendicular layer of the white cotton padding:

For the third and final layer of padding, I switched to one strand of flat silk in a pale wheat gold. The top layer of these petals will be stitched in a light blonde gold metal thread, so I wanted the last layer before the metal thread to be a matching color of silk. That way, if there are any slight gaps in the metal threads, they won't show up. If I just did the white padding, even tiny gaps would be very obvious. I did this layer of gold silk padding perpendicular to the previous layer:

With the padding complete, it was time to start the topmost layer. I used a #1 strand of the light blonde gold metal thread, half-hitched in a #10T needle. I used this big twisting needle because it makes a large hole in the silk fabric, which allows the metal thread to pass through without rubbing against the silk too much. Metal thread is very delicate and the outer metal can easily be stripped off the silk core if there's too much friction. I started in the center of the petal for this layer and worked my way to the tip of the petal:

I initially used half lengths of my metal thread to make sure they didn't get stripped from pulling them through the fabric so often. But the #10T needle really does a good job of reducing friction on the thread, so I eventually switched to a full length of the metal thread because I didn't like having to start and stop a new thread so often. 

I didn't have any real problems with the full length of metal thread becoming stripped until the very end of some of them — just the last 2–3 inches or so. So I ended those lengths a few stitches early, which was still easier than using 8-inch lengths. Here's the first petal complete:

These petals have to have space between them so they can later be outlined in a thicker metal thread, so I couched down some size 8 perle cotton around the petal to mark out this space and give me a hard edge to stitch against:

I used blue silk couching thread so it would be easy to see and later remove. Because of the need for these precise gaps, you can't really tell where to begin the padding for the next petal until the previous one is complete, so each of these petals had to be stitched completely before moving on to the next. I started with the above petal because it was in the foreground. And in JE, you always start stitching in the foreground and then move to the background.

I could have moved to either petal to the side of this one, but I just started working clockwise, carefully placing my padding so there would be sufficient room for the metal thread to be stitched down over the top of it:

And here is that petal complete:

I added the same perle cotton around the border of each petal as I completed it. Here is the halfway point:

Next, I moved to the petal to the right of the first petal I completed because it was in the foreground of the other two:

And then on to petal 5:

And then the sixth and final petal:

This one didn't need a perle cotton outline, of course. In fact, it was time to remove those outline threads so I could see my stitching gaps:

I think they turned out pretty well. The perle cotton did its job and left a space between each petal. To be honest, I think the space is a little large and maybe size 12 perle cotton would have been a little better, but at least the spaces are consistent.

The next step was to stitch the outline. This can be done with a pair of #3 or #4 metal threads, but the gaps were a little too large for the #3, so I used #4 silver instead. I couched it down with white thread because I want the couching to kind of blend in and fade away:

As you can see, I started on the inner, right corner and worked my way around the inside of the petals first. Then I carefully couched the metal threads around each petal.

In between each petal, I took only one strand all the way in and just doubled it back to fill the space till it met up with the other thread — like the to-and-fro technique I used on my fan ribs in phases 2 and 3. In the picture below, the turquoise dot marks where the first thread turns. The other thread continues into the gap and then does a U-turn to come back out and meet up with the other thread:

When I completed the couching all the way around, I sank the beginning metal thread pair first. Then I sank the ending ones over them, going out about 1 point to make a more obvious corner. In the picture below, you can see that the ends are sunk just a little beyond the inner border:

And here is how the central petals look completed:

I think it looks really beautiful. That very pale gold with the silver is even prettier in real life. The next step is to couch down some perle cotton around these petals and between each of the larger petals to leave intentional gaps between the different elements. But I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to do this — what size of thread to use, whether to use a pair or a single strand, etc. — so that's a step for another day.