Page 1
There are many flowers that lend themselves to possible tassel designs.
Page 2 More flowers!!!
Page 3. Another interesting shape.
Page 4 More ideas.
Page 5. I finally chose the columbine …… I had this illustration in Chapter 2 Page 4 of Module 2. Not an easy piece to develop but I persevered.
Page 6 My drawings of the various components. I chose 5 pieces of the tall flower petals. The large leaf (sepal) by itself was too big so I chose to put two smaller leaves together as shown on the right. You will see as I go through the process of how I imagined the final product.
Page 7. The petals were joined together to make a “crown”!!! Then I put the joined sepals across between two of the petals as seen in the picture below. The fifth sepal had to be a single one.
Page 8. My doodle cloth!!
Fabric and stabilizer – black felt
Page 9. The petals. Cable stitch - straight stitch around the outside and the spiral at the top using free embroidery. Automatic flower stitch #22.for the rest of the petal with the feed dogs up and a regular sewing foot. I stitched from top to bottom and over stitched areas where there were black spaces. There is a lot of over stitching.
The stitch patterns are difficult to determine from the pictures. And from the actual pieces.
Threads for the petals – bobbin thread - variegated fine silk cord (Treenway Silks) – colour - a tint of red orange. Top thread - Thread Studio – 100% rayon – variegated – colour -Carnivale
The top thread (or the back of the petal) complemented the colour chosen for the front. As you can see, I made a mistake by stitching the cable stitch on the wrong side of two of the petals. One was an accident and the other was deliberate!!
Page 10. The sepals – cable stitch. Again I used free embroidery for the outlines. Then I chose an automatic leaf pattern #24. First of all I systematically stitched from the top to the bottom ….. somewhat more regular than the petals. I then overstitched using the same pattern and a metallic green as a top thread (no cable this time!!) The thread on the underpart of the leaf was the same for both stitchings.
Sepals – bobbin thread – Candelight metallic yarn – colour 020 – melon and Illuminations Metallic thread – colour – leaf green from Thread Studio. Top thread – 100% rayon – variegated green/red violet/ shade of yellow.
Sepals flipped over!!
Tassle strings - cut from a piece of painted cloth that complemented the thread on the back of the petals. I did not use cable stitch but I did use an automatic stitch # 20 which resembles a tulip. I used two different threads …. both 100% rayons from Thread Studio – Carnivale and Cradle Mountain. I am sorry that I didn’t take a picture of the tassel stings before they were attached.
Page 11 – Putting the tassel together. this was quite a challenge and did take some doing!! I first of all hand stitched the five petals together leaving one set open so that I could maneuver the other stitches that needed to be done. I was hoping to use the bar between two sets of petals as a base for holding the tassel together as well as attaching the tassel strings. However, this did not work. I had to cut them apart and sew each one down separately. Then I stitched two felt bars in a cross shape on the inside to hold the hanging string (a piece of silk cord with lots of wandering threads!!!). I then stitched each of the folded in half tassel strings to the felt bars.
Page 12 …… The completed Tassel. I took many pictures but here are two of them.
I noted after the fact that I was not to do free embroidery. Also the tassels should have had some cable stitches. I thought that the end product would be too heavy!!!
