Tag Archives: split stitch

Hello (at last) Hengest!

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Once upon a time, in November 2018 to be exact, a polka-dotted unicorn named Hengest and inspired by a medieval cope made his appearance in the Figworthy household. Just on paper, at that point, and intended to be worked in silk and gold, Opus Anglicanum style. But before I got beyond raiding my silk boxes for pale pastels another idea presented itself – why not do him in wool? Which, in January 2019, I proceeded to do.

Hengest transferred and the threads chosen

Although he stands a mere 10cm high (one hand, in horsey language) it takes a lot of split stitch to fill him completely! And there is only so much split stitch I can take uninterrupted by anything else. So Hengest was frequently put aside while I worked on other things (which got put aside in their turn for yet other projects), partly because there were some design decisions that took a bit of pondering. As he was nearing completion, two such decisions were left: how to create the spiralling effect on his horn, and whether to use beads for the gems on his browband.

Hengest's horn and browband

That horn took a lot of pondering and sampling! Initially I came up with two ideas, both of which I sampled to see which I most liked the look of. First I tried tapering lines of split stitch along the length of the horn in medium gold, with the spiralling split stitched over the top in darker gold (left); I started with too shallow an angle so towards the tip I tried a more acute angle. Then I tried working the whole horn in short curved lines, alternating two or three medium with one darker (right). As it turned out, I didn’t like the look of either method. The one on the right lacked definition, and although the acuter-angled spirals on the left one were an improvement, they still weren’t quite what I wanted. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Two variations on a horn

Then there was his bridle. Originally both this and his chest band were meant to be bejewelled. For his chest band I simply could not make that work, and in the end it was done completely in split stitch. But I have some drop beads in lovely medieval stained-glass colours that are just the right size for Hengest’s headgear. Surely I should be able to incorporate those?

Using beads on Hengest's bridle

Alas. I love those beads to bits, but they just do not go with the wool. Too shiny, too attention-grabbing, just plain wrong. Hengest was going to be 100% wool.

But as I had decided to leave the jewels until the very last – a colourful reward for finally completing my mostly white and pastel woolly equine – the horn had to be done first. I’d thought of a third method of doing the spirals, which at first I didn’t even sample because it meant diverting from my split-stitch-only approach. But as I came ever closer to the moment when it was either the horn, or packing Hengest away for another few months, I tried it out on one of my previous samples: a darker gold stitch across the horn, couched down slightly curved. Actually my sample wasn’t curved at all, but even so I liked the look of it: thinner (and to my mind more elegant) than a line of split stitch, yet visibly standing out from the underlying stitches.

A third way of stitching the spirals on the horn

On with it then! First a long line of split stitch along the centre of the horn right to the tip with a slightly longer than usual stitch at the end, then two lines down the sides, splitting into the long stitch at the tip. Fill in the gaps, and on to the couched spirals. I’m not entirely happy with the angle – if I did it again (which I won’t!) I’d make the angle sharper – but on the whole a handsome horn.

A line of split stitch down the centre of the horn Adding the sides Filling in the rest Complete with couched spirals

Next were the last of his flowing locks (which I would have worked in a slightly different order if I had been concentrating instead of racing ahead to the finish with the bit between my teeth) and then finally, finally, the bridle gems. These too are Not Split Stitch; in order to make them stand out I opted for padded satin stitch, horizontal underneath and slanted vertical on top, starting with a long central stitch from bottom to tip.

Horizontal padding for the gems Vertical satin stitch over horizontal padding Starting with a central stitch

The resulting gems are a bit wonky, partly because the gaps I had left in the surrounding split stitch were not entirely even, but then Hengest is quite a wonky unicorn anyway, and I rather like the hand-drawn quality of it. Quite in the spirit of the wonky horse on the Steeple Aston cope that inspired him!

Hengest complete

A different use

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Remember those twelve or so projects I had in various stages of WIPness? Well, several have been finished – the Wedding Umbrellas, the little flower and the Sarah Homfray crewel bird. So there are fewer in the pile now? Well, no. A doodle cloth has been added for Soli Deo Gloria (I have worked out what I want to do with the flower centre; now to try different approaches for the petals), as well as a crewel project made up of bits of designs from two books, and a wool version of Hengest (using some of the Milano Heathway wools that arrived today). But at least I am finishing things as well as starting them!

Milano Heathway crewel wools - some of them for Hengest

One small project, however, was in danger of turning from a WIP (Work In Progress) into a UFO (UnFinished Object). It was a small pansy which I found on an embroidery website somewhere and which I thought would be handy to try out my Madeira Lana threads. And so it was; I got some useful long & short stitch in on one of the petals, then rather lost interest, at least partly because by then I’d used the Lana for one of my Quatrefoils as well, so the pansy’s original use had been rather overtaken by events.

Long and short stitch in Lana on a pansy petal

And I realised I didn’t really like the way the leaves were designed, divided into two halves, light and dark green. Of course I could change that to be long & short stitch as well, but by then I’d already done half a leaf in dark green split stitch. And then it dawned on me: I could use this pansy to Try Out Something Else!

The Tree of Life I’ve been designing for the past three years or so has one of those willowy trunks that you see a lot in Jacobean crewel work as well; mine is meant to be worked in stem stitch lines, and probably not solidly filled. But that, and a daffodil I did some time ago, made me wonder about using stem stitch and split stitch as a solid filling when you don’t go round and round but work in lines. If you work the two outlines and then work your way in from both sides to the middle (which is what I would instinctively do) then unless the shape is uniformly wide along its entire length you will get a sort of vein in the middle where the lines coming from left and right meet. How could you avoid that effect? Well, one way might be to work middle-to-sides instead of sides-to-middle – then the lines would get shorter on the outside of the shape. Start at the bottom in the middle to do a full-length line right to the top, then add lines on the left and right of the middle which are each a little shorter than the previous one, simply stopping when they reach the outline.

My theory, when thinking it over, was that the former method (sides-to-middle) would cause a ridge or vein in the middle but also have smoother sides, while the latter (middle-to-sides) would be smooth in the centre but perhaps a little stepped on the sides. Well, why not try this out on the four leaves of the pansy! So I set out to work the dark green halves of the leaves, side-to-middle on the left-hand leaves and middle-to-side on the right-hand ones. As you can see the bottom leaf on the left particularly shows the slightly stepped line down the centre, where the light green other half will meet it.

Split stitch leaves, side-to-middle, first half Split stitch leaves, middle-to-side, first half

The photographs below were taken before I managed to completely finish the final leaf, but I think the difference is clear enough to see, and a very useful record to keep in my doodle folder. I managed to keep the sides of the middle-to-sides leaves rather smoother than I had feared/expected, which was a pleasant surprise!

Split stitch leaves, side-to-middle, second half Split stitch leaves, middle-to-side, second half

So now I know: if I want a vein down the middle, for example because I am stitching a leaf, I’ll use sides-to-middle – and if I don’t, for example on petals or trunks, I’ll use middle-to-sides! As for the rest of the pansy, it may get finished. Or not. It depends on how loudly the wool unicorn calls…