C Rose Needle book

Needle book with a C and Yellow Rose.
A Gift for Countess Cassandra.
  • CRose01 The beginning. Design traced with fine (.5mm) micron pen, onto silk satin fabric, and hooped into a small frame.
  • CRose02 3 of the main colors I will be using. Soie de Paris filament silk threads.
  • CRose03 Used dark gold and medium gold, then realized I need a cream to finish the rose.
  • CRose04 Rose complete in the silk.
  • CRose05 Beginning of red silk on C. Here it is outlined in split stitch. It will be completed with long & short stitches in red and dark red silks.
  • CRose06 Red silk is done as underlayer (sorry for missing the photo of that). It took me awhile, but I figured out a grid arrangement in drawing tissue, and am couching down short lengths of dark gold passing over the red silk.
  • CRose07 All of the dark gold passing is now couched into place.
  • CRose08 The tissue paper removed, showing how the gold passing looks so far - a big mess.
  • CRose10 Ah, much better - the threads have been cut, and the ends have all been plunged to the backside. Not perfect, but hand made is not meant to be perfect.
  • CRose13 Just to give you all an idea of the scale of this piece, I put in a quarter. I have also couched a pair of dark gold passing around all of the designs, both C and the rose.
  • CRose14 Angled shot trying to get the rose in close-up detail. The center of the rose is now done in small bits of cut check, sewn down like beads.
  • CRose15 A different angle showing the whole design. It looks good as is, but I really wanted it to sparkle - as she loves sparkly things.
  • CRose16 Straight view. You can easily see the dark red on the inside area of the C, to help give it some depth.
  • CRose17 Spangles for the sparky! The outline shows the initial estimated area for my original plan, which didn't happen.
  • CRose20 From another angle.
  • CRose21 And another angle, which shows at the left of the red C how silk changes depending on the light.
  • CRose22 Close-up detail of the spangles. They are held in place with bits of bullion, stitched down like a bead through the center hole of the spangle. This allows the spangle to move a little.
  • CRose23 Again, shown with a quarter to show the scale of the piece.
  • CRose24 This is the finished needle book, covered with red cotton velveteen on the outside. A gold twist cord was sewn to the middle and back cover so this can be worn on a girdle.
  • CRose25 2 pages of wool felt were hand sewn, with a linen thread in backstitch. The inside of the book is covered in silk dupionni. The little tab shown was eventually removed.
  • CRose26 This is how the book will normally stay semi-open, because of how tight I made the covers, especially the lining. The book was made from Margo Anderson's Historic Costume Accessories package pattern, with some mods for handsewing.
  • CRose27 Cord sewn to the spine, covering the needle pages stitching.
  • CRose28 Gold cord tied into a simple knot, then the end was allowed to fray into a tassle.
  • CRose29 The initial idea was to have a cover slide over the needle book, but I made the mistake of covering in velveteen. Even slippery silk lining would not slide easily over the velveteen, so I had to ditch this idea.
  • CRose30 So, plan B (or was it C) was to sew the embroidered design onto the cover of the already finished needle book itself. If I were to make this again, I would have added a layer of white padding to prevent the other color from showing through.
  • CRose32 Completed embroidered needle book from a fun angle.
  • CRose33 Inside of finished needle book. I left a needle to help start the process, which was used in creating the book.
  • CRose35a Thread eye from silk buttonhole twist, and metal hook covered by the lining. These two will hold the book closed.
  • CRose37 Book held closed by hook and thread eye.
  • CRose38 Pictured next to a ruler to show size of the finished piece.