TAST week 16: French knot

English name: french knot (pl. french knots)
Swedish name: fransk knut  (pl. franska knutar)

Ok, so now I've catched up. Or I will have when showing the aurica sampler, which is the second half of my catch-up post (to be published here soon). This week I focused on ribbon embroidery as I've never really tried to make french knot ribbon roses before. Do know how to make french knots with thread/floss so why not focus on a type of embroidery I want to learn but haven't got very far with yet (oh, I don't want to use my pretty silk ribbons for my first clumpsy attempts -- what a waste of beautiful, and not always that cheap, silk!).

So these are officially my first ribbonwork flowers. First rose I made was the pink one, using 25-30 mm wide ribbon. Actually it's my second because I messed up, trying to just tweak it a bit and then pulled it too hard so it had to be redone (hence why the ribbon is a bit frayed). Not perfect, but I'm pleased with it considering what a newbie I am.

Then I went on to do the blue knots in 7 mm ribbon -- one turned out better than the other -- and the purple flower, which I made from a cheap synthetic ribbon yarn. I think I'm going to try and do some more embroidery with that yarn in the future...

Of cause I've also made knots with the aurica yarn. I tried a few variations, altering the number of twists and changing between starting with a section "open" or filled yarn closest to the fabric. My faves are the two knots in the middle (which you can see close-ups of below). I liked the black centre and puffy orange "petals" around it. In the top right corner you can see some stem stitches -- better pic of them will be found in the coming aurica sampler post. Hopefully you'll also find a less blurry photo of the french knots there...

 Making these stitches made me think of a UFO I found when looking for my old cotton floss stash. It's a cat embroidery I designed and began, but never finished, to stitch as a kid or young teen. The cat is modelled after a fridge magnet I had.

Stem stitches, french knots and bullion knots -- must be the first and last I've ever made so far! -- it was pretty ambitios considering how bored I was with stem stitch as a kid and knots aren't always that easy when impatient. Of cause I also have the first colour sketch and finished pattern (which was traced onto the black fabric).

Wonder if I'll ever get around to finish it? If nothing else my taste in embroidery and colours have changed a bit since then, making it less interesting to pick up again. I'm into other designs and materials today. On the other hand it's a pity not to finish a design I actually took some time to compose and pick out colours for...

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What is TAST?

Take a Stitch Tuesday is a weekly embroidery challenge throughout the year by Sharon of Pin Tangle. You can read more about it here (or by clicking the TAST badge to the right).


To see what others have done in this stitch, check out the comments in this post on Pin Tangle. Be sure not to miss Sharon's lovely stitch variations in the actual post.