I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that surely by now I must have buttonholed the whole Floral Lace series, but alas, I have not been nearly as productive as I would have liked. I’m still working on the Floral Lace variation which was my experimental finishing piece. I am making progress on that, though! The felt has been attached, it’s a bit lop-sided so I will definitely use a bigger square next time and then cut round it. BAs for the buttonholing: a sharp needle is needed! Trying to push a relatively large tapestry needle through felt is a frustrating process, and very hard on the fingers. But once switch to a crewel needle and it’s a doddle. One side effect I hadn’t foreseen is that the felt pulls through to the front a bit, so there are stray burgundy wisps mixed up in my pristine white buttonhole stitches. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Another things is that the buttonhole edge as I’m stitching it here is rather close to the design, especially as I want to use variable length buttonhole stitch (see the left-hand chart). I know the border won’t be quite so noticeable in white as it is in the charted grey, but perhaps it would look better further away, as in the right-hand chart? I will try the latter out on one of the “real” Floral Laces and report back.

By the way, the pearl purl idea for Treasure Trove is not going to happen; first of all I’m not at all sure where I could put it (and in what shape or outline) so that it doesn’t clutter up the design, and secondly my gold pearl purl is the wrong colour – it is far yellower than the kid and beads I’ve been using. Never mind, I’ll keep it for a future design.