Hand stitching lengths of fabric

 One of the pieces of work for Scotland involves joining quite a few lengths of fabric to create seven scrolls, which will drift down some plinths Barry has been making for me.

I decided to join the different lengths by doing hand-stitched run and fell seams, which of course, I dreamt about how to do at night but then ended up watching a YouTube clip to put me right. So glad I did, as I learnt many a good little tip. The woman there hand stitches historical clothes so she is more of a perfectionist than I needed to be, but I digress.

First up, I wanted to stitch the scrolls with some of the flax thread I had been gifted by the gorgeous folk at Gongcrafts, the natural dyers of wool who live in a nearby village to us in Scotland.  I have shared some of my struggles with unwinding and re-winding the flax thread here, but I hoped that the hard part was done and that I could now simply merrily stitch my fabrics together.

As you can see from the photos, the thread still wanted to stick to itself as I drew it through the needle, and the needle through the fabric, and then tear, and I gave up after half a dozen stitches. I was sadly disappointed, but will keep working out ways to use the thread!

I then turned to some crochet cotton thread I had dyed using the Devil's Bit Scabiosus flowers from Scotland and you can see they stitched very nicely in comparison.

Not that I stitched so very nicely, but after watching the You Tube I learned to draw a stitching line if I really wanted to do straight stitches.

I did the fell part with a tiny diagonal stitch and this is how the seam looked from the back.

And this is how it looked from the front, so I thought yep we are on to something.

And away I went. I have cut down all the fabric I need, and now have seven lengths to create - from 2.0m down to 1.7m; some involve joining three lengths, others involve joining seven. So I at least got to practise hand stitching run and fell seams!

With loads of notes to self and calculations...

They are now all joined and looking pretty OK and tidy.

Now to hand stitch onto about a metre length for each scroll - a fair mountain of work awaits!