Adding French knots to the geo hoop
I’m a little bit late with this post for week 4 of The Happy Stitch Project – I’m so sorry! Life is just really hectic at the moment, which is ironic considering we’re in lockdown and aren’t going anywhere…but the juggle is very real! Anyway, this week we’re adding French knots to the geo hoop that we stitched last week.
The main takeaway from this week is that I don’t want you to be afraid of French knots! Once you’ve learnt this method, you’ll be stitching them super fast in no time. It’s a good idea to watch the French knot tutorial video first if you haven’t seen it yet. Just remember: needle closest to you, thread furthest away! This will all make sense once you’ve seen the video.
Watch the French knot tutorial video
In this video, I’m using 3 strands of standard embroidery thread (which is now available as individual skeins in my shop – yay!). To make the French knots bigger or smaller, you can either wrap round more or fewer times, or use more or fewer strands of thread. Have a go, and experiment with sizes so you feel comfortable with it.
Back to the link stitch geo hoop
So last week I started stitching the link stitch geo hoop – and I finished the link stitches this week! It was so therapeutic actually. I’m really loving doing all of these tutorials for you, as it gives me time to stitch 😊 which is always a good thing! It also felt really nice to put something out there into the world that wasn’t finished. I share WIP photos all the time, but this was slightly different. I hope it helps you to feel more positively about WIPs!
Once the links were finished, it was time to add in the French knots. I decided that I’d only add them in the places where four complete links met, and I’m happy with that in terms of the design. Feel free to do more if you wish, it’s entirely up to you!
Watch the video showing how to add the French knots to the geo hoop
To see how I added the knots to this design, watch this tutorial video. I am still using only two shades of perle no.8 thread here, DMC 959 (turquoise) and 793 (cornflower). I decided to contrast them by adding turquoise knots to cornflower link stitches, and vice versa.
I think the overall effect of this is really quite pleasing! The link stitches aren’t perfect, but the perle thread is quite forgiving. Once the design builds up a little, you can look past them. If you don’t have any perle thread, you can use 3 strands of standard thread for the same thickness.
Have you joined in with #TheHappyStitchProject so far?
I’d love to see what you’re making! So please tag me @hellohoorayblog and use the hashtag #TheHappyStitchProject 😊 Look out for the next tutorial coming on Friday. You can also find stitch tutorials on IGTV now – I’m using the super Happy Stitch hoop templates designed by Helen from @unicornfactoryuk
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