After tossing up in my mind what to ‘do’ with the stump work piece I worked at the one day RSN class I attended back in January, I Â finally decided I was going to have a go at making a wall hanging or plaque. I was thinking about making it into some hoop art, but IÂ really wanted to see if I could do this! Now bare in mind I have never done this before, so I am bound to have made some faux pas along the way!
The first step was to work out the size of the piece. I was actually quite happy with the space around the design when it was sitting in the hoop (hence my thought about hoop art!), but that was a good starting point to help me decide. In a water erasable pen, I drew in some lines – you can see where I’ve changed my mind about placement. The next part was the easy part – cutting out the matt board to size.
I didn’t know from the outset if I would need to pad the board further or not, but after ‘playing’ with the finished piece on the board, I came to the conclusion that this would probably be a good idea. I have a rather large supply of wadding given I never use it, so I put that to good use. The next part is where a bit of experience would have been useful! I didn’t know what size to cut the wadding to. My initial thought was that it should be marginally smaller, and I’d use some fabric glue to keep it in place. But after ‘testing’ this theory by placing the finished piece on the board with the wadding, I decided that wasn’t quite right. Next thought – the wadding needed to completely cover the front of the board. That didn’t seem to work either. So, that left cover the entire board with the wadding! I cut it marginally larger so I didn’t waste too much more of the wadding with all my playing around, and that seemed to work! Well, my somewhat hasty ‘test’ suggested that it would be ok. So I tacked that in place (with thread, not glue!).
Next up was to test my memory of how to lace up a piece of embroidery onto the now covered board. Our internet was ‘gone’ for most of the day, so I had to go on memory! All in all, it worked out probably better than my first attempt, but I still need to work out how to properly work the corners.
Then the fun part! Making the cord. I chose two colours of DMC thread, and using six strands of both colours, I made a rope, which I then stitched into place so I could ‘hang’ my plaque. Not too much breath holding, although it does get tricky at times and I got myself into only a minor tangle this time round! You’ll have to excuse the odd photo – it was rather tricky to take without getting into a complete tangle!
After choosing the backing fabric, and admitting to myself that I really did need to iron the fabric and the hem into place, I stitched the backing fabric on. I can feel the lacing threads through this fabric, so if I were to do it again, I would probably use some felt or more wadding just to ‘firm up’ the back a little.
Given I made this up as I went along, I’m quite happy with the end result! The stitching of the backing fabric could have been a little neater, and the whole process would have been easier if I could have located my curved needles, but now I have a little ‘plaque’ for the door.
I’d love to know what you would have done differently if you were making this one up – I can learn for next time round!
It looks great. I know from Instagram you were having issues with the corners and had another idea that could possibly work. When you’re covering a book, we always trim the corners with a diagonal cut. This reduces the amount of material on the corners and makes it look less bulky.
Oh I like that idea! Will definitely give that one a go next time! Thank you for the tip
This is lovely!
Thank you! It was a fun piece to make