Saturday, May 4, 2013

Brazilian embroidery--threads, part 2

In my last post on Brazilian embroidery, we looked at the different threads by EdMar and how to prep them for use. In this post, I will show you how they work up. It is as easy as threading a new needle to get a completely different look--even with the same stitch.

 

This sampler shows all seven threads (Glory (G), Iris (I), Lola (L), Nova (N), Frost (F), Circe(C) and Boucle (B)) worked up in the following popular Brazilian embroidery stitches: stem, french knots, bullion, cast on, lazy daisy buttonhole, and couching. Now let's look more closely.

 

First, you see stem stitch and 3-wrap french knots. There isn't much surprise that the heavier-weight threads make thicker lines and fuller french knots. Remember though, that this is a z-twist thread, so the thread gets thrown to the top instead of the bottom in the stem stitch and the knots are wrapped in a clock-wise direction.

 

Next is something I never tried before. First I made same length bullions in each thread, except Boucle. Look at how the number of wraps differ from 90 for glory to 25 for Nova. Unfortunately, my bullions are a bit messy since I haven't made any in awhile. I'd like to try this again after practicing more--I think it would up the number of wraps a bit, but the numbers would still be far apart. The cast-ons really demonstrate the difference, since each thread has 25 wraps.

 

The Lazy daisies, show off differences in the thread textures. Glory, Iris, Lola and Nova are all similar looking when worked, but Frost, Circe and Boucle are all quite different. Since Lola, Frost and Circe are all the same weight, it is even more striking.

 

The differences are even more profound on the buttonhole leaves. I love how shiny and soft the Circe looks.

 

Finally, since I wasn't about to attempt bullions or cast-ons with Boucle, I made a boucle flower done by wrapping the thread around two pins and then tacking it down. It demonstrates the 3-D effect you can get with Boucle.

 

I hope this helps gain a better understanding of EdMar threads, their similarities and differences and gives you some ideas on which thread to choose for specific tasks.

 

1 comment:

  1. Thank You for this article showing the difference in the threads/stitches.

    ReplyDelete