Posted by dravon in LiveJournal, Project Review | Comments Off on Drawn-thread embroidery pillow case
Drawn-thread embroidery pillow case
I first came across drawn-thread embroidery about a year ago or thereabouts and wanted to give it a try. That said, I didn’t want to go overboard with it and I wanted to have a target project for it. Somehow, I dreamed up the idea that I could use the huge fat cross-stitch material I found intended for a baby blanket, and instead use it to make the cuffs of a pair of pillow cases. Here is one completed pillow case which is the result of that idea.
* The design is a sampler that I picked from the embroidery book I got to learn this from, and it was not only very simple but also relatively quick to do. Patience is not my strong suit, and neither is detail so everything that I can pick out that wasn’t perfect had everything do with operator error and carelessness. I loved the drawn thread part, I was not a fan of the flowerdy stitching on the ends, so that’s the ugliest part of the whole thing. White on white is not easy to do! Despite my best efforts, the overall design itself came out looking pretty good.
* Grabbing up a pillow case off the bed, I used that as a template for the new one. Using white linen for the main body of the pillow and navy blue linen as the contrast material for under the cuff, I cut it all to size. That was 21″ on the fold and 18″ across. The navy linen and the design were cut 18″ across and 7″ — enough to center the design with about an 1″ on each side.
* Design was centered over the blue linen and then serged so it could be treated as one piece. This contrast material on the back had the desired effect of making the drawn-thread areas look more dramatic. The design was then stitched to the sleeve at the TOP of the design, not at the hem. When folded back and pressed, this meant the navy blue is hidden between the white linen case and the white design fabric.
* The sides were then serged, and the hem was rolled back 3/4″ and stitched down. I wish I’d had the foresight to stitch the design a bit further back so that I could have more of a cuff on bottom side of the pillow, but it’s acceptable.
* My worry — washing navy blue linen with white linen. I don’t particularly want a baby blue pillow case. I’ve washed the materials individiually, but navy tends to bleed forever so that’s a concern. Since I won’t be able to bleach these when they get dirty, I’m thinking maybe they should just be the pretty pillow cases and not really use them. We’ll see.
Now I’m working on making the design area for the second pillow, so technically this project isn’t complete until the second pillow case is also done.
