Side One is DONE!

This is my completed side one. It will be on display this weekend at Southern Region War Camp (East Kingdom), along with my documentation. I will gladly accept feedback, as always. I'm very happy with how my plaited braid turned out, and once I got past my learning curve, it went very quickly and smoothly.

I may need to fill in some of the ground closer to the plaited braid- I want to go back and examine some extant pieces and see how close the ground comes to the braid. I also plan to make my braid channels a bit narrower on the second side, so I won't need to "go back" and fill so much.

Metal Threads

Working with metal threads has been an interesting experience. They are quite finicky. I'm using No. 4 silver passing thread for the ground of my bag, done in an "Elizabethan Ground Stitch", as advocated by Jacqueline Carey, in her Sweet Bag Book. She points out that this is the most common stitch on the bags she has observed, and, indeed, there is a clear difference in the amount of metal thread visible on a side, so it makes sense that this stitch would be used, as it would allow for the least amount of "hidden" expensive metal thread.

Right side:

Wrong side:

I'm working with a brass needle, made by my husband. This has a punched eye, which is much kinder on the metal thread than the stamped eye of a commercial needle. (The steel needle sticking under the threads is used when I need to fix a mistake and pull out metal threads, rather than bend my brass needles).

The ground stitch is very soothing to the eye, although mistakes are obvious. It's worked 1:4, and then loops behind for 2, similar to a stem stitch.

Side Two!

For side two, I decided to use the darker red thread on the rose. I'm not totally happy with it- I might have preferred sticking with the "rosier" colors on side one. I also did the pink in shades of peach, which I do like. I also added a small hillock at the bottom of each side, for my plaited braid to "root" into. After examining some extant pieces in person at the Met, I might have made the hillock in shades of green, but I don't think it looks terrible. I suppose I could pull everything out, but that petit point is TINY, and I can always experiment on my next one. ;)