Bargello and Beads and Stuff

I'm not quite down to the Jurassic level in the UFO's box, but I did find these today from the far distant past - probably about five years ago. I was speaking (by e-mail, of course) with Inge Wooley today of Creative Needle, and was reminded of the gorgeous bargello ornaments she was doing at about the same time - our minds still seem to work on a parallel even after all these years. I will dig those out tomorrow and show them. Anyway, this was, I think, about the time I discovered the world of colored metallic braids that Kreinik has - as all I had used before was the gold and silver. It was a whole new world. I was also re-discovering Bargello, and trying to remember how I did it 30 years ago. With this one, I just dug white threads out of the stash - several different kinds - and used them with different stitches for textural effect. It was an easy matter of just marking the horizontal and vertical centers of the circle, and starting in the center, as good bargello is when it's symmetric. (Those gorgeous old Elsa Williams flame stitch/Florentine patterns were different).

The next one is simply four motifs interlocked - a simple thing to do - and then the metallic braid Raised Spider Webs in the centers. The white backgrounds are stitched with my beading technique of stitching basketweave on the warp only, then filling in with beads on the weft. They look beaded solid!! The red and green stitches are made with Rainbow Gallery Frosty Rays.

If you click to enlarge both ornaments, you will notice that I make a row of tent stitch always all the way around the ornament - it makes it look neater, it finishes better, and is just more attractive. The red and green one also has two rows of basketweave around the outer edge so as not to lose any of the bargello stitching in the finishing. On the round one, the outline was stitched first, so that the bargello doesn't look ragged around the perimeter.