Sunday 21 November 2010

Damp stretching the flowers

I promised last time that I'll be starting on putting the bottom panel together next, and I am, but I'm afraid there's quite a bit of prep work to do before I can start any actual embroidery.

Firstly, damp stretching the various sheets of flowers.  If you've been following the blog for a while you'll know that I prefer to damp stretch rather than iron embroidery; it gives a much smoother finish, I can control any reshaping that might be necessary much easier, and there's no risk of accidentally scorching the fabric.

Here are all the sheets, together for the first time:


Happily, there's no pulling or puckering around the embroidery, but as you can see, the fabric's slightly rippled, and I want it to be nice and flat.  So, after a an hour or two of careful pinning onto a cork board, here they all are stretched taught:


I then lightly sprayed them with a plant mister, and left them overnight to dry.  And the result?  Beautifully smooth, absolutely flat embroidery:


Next, I need to get the bottom panel itself ready.

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