The bling cloth

I should have shared this with you before now (though if you follow me on Instagram or Flickr you would have seen pictures of my bling cloth) so this will appear that the embroidery happened really quickly. It didn't, I started this at the beginning of October.

The idea of the bling cloth is something else that has come from simply stitch five and was started by Karen because she fancied a bit of work using bling - i.e. beads, leather, gimp, silk tissue. If you've followed Karen for a while, you would have seen how this approach is a big change from her usual modus operandi.

To start mine I machine embroidered strips of lace, metallic tissue, voile fabric and ribbon to a piece of vintage cotton.

Then the embellishment started. Where fabrics are joined there's buttonhole lace and pekinese stitch edging. There's lines of french knots, bumps of leather edged with chain stitch, or buttonhole stitch and beads. Silver cord couched in squiggles. Large beads caught down with blanket stitch wrapped threads, glass beads and patches of velvet and a good few bullion loops.

When it's finished, I'll turn this clock into a pouch to store my broderie anglais in. It's not going to something that just sits on a shelf because it's too precious. Though it's going to take a bit of time before it reaches the time to do that. I'm really enjoying working on it. Especially against the hankies, which are light and feathery, this has weight and a depth of embroidery that's just lovely to work with.

You'll definitely be seeing more of this!

TTFN
Louise