Pincushion doll and thimble purse – 2

I’ve managed to get all of the cross stitching done on the skirt of the pincushion doll now, and while it was still on the frame it looked like this:

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did find the repetitiveness a bit tedious, but it’s not as if it was a surprise to have to do it!

After completing the cross stitch, I attached the beads – these are ‘berries’ that add highlights to the leafy border, and the centre of each bow above the hearts. Then I worked the little bars that the cord will be threaded through. These were interesting to do – usually, when working any ‘bars’ for cording, they are buttonhole stitch bars, which can take a long time to stitch, and often stretch out of shape. These, I found, were more successful (and much quicker to do). They are cross stitches covering six threads by two, with gaps of eight threads between each one. But the clever bit is that each cross stitch is wrapped around twice (not going through the fabric) before going on to do the next stitch. Very clever, and very simple. I’ll have to remember that, next time I’m making a drawstring bag.

Then I lined the skirt with a piece of unbleached muslin (the instructions said to use cream silk, but I didn’t have any).

The next fun part was making the cord to go through the cross stitch bars. It’s a good thing I already knew how to do this, as the instructions just say, ‘Make the cording with a 54″ skein section of 112 Fir’. Hmm. A bit more detail would have been useful here, I think. And maybe a diagram or two, for those who haven’t made one before?

The instructions said to thread the cord through the bars, ‘non-knotted end’ first. I could only get this to work when I used a ‘sling’ of sewing cotton passed through the end of the cord, so that it was a blunt-ended needle which went through the bars first – the cord was too soft on its own.

But it does look good now that it’s finished. I think the Caron Waterlilies thread is really shown off well in the bottom stripes of the skirt, here. Using plain DMC wouldn’t have looked anything like as good:

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