Kutchwork Tutorial - The 5 Point Diamond Motif (Maltese Cross) - Part II

INTERLACING THE FIVE POINT DIAMOND MOTIF (MALTESE CROSS)

Bring the needle up at the outward corner of the beginning and end of the maltese cross.  Keep in mind the following points. The thread always moves in a 'U' pattern.  Interlacing is done in an OVER-UNDER-OVER-UNDER manner. Unless at the beginning and end, never pierce the  fabric. Do not tighten the interlacing thread too much. 

As in the single diamond motif's interlacing begin interlacing the diamond 1. 

     

At this point we have to change the direction of the interlacing.  Remember that the thread should pass in a 'U' manner. See the below picture. Needle passes UNDER and enters the diamond 3.

Kutchwork Tutorial - The 5 Point Diamond Motif (Maltese Cross) - Part I

I hope that you are thorough with the Outlining and Interlacing of the  Basic Diamond Motif.  Now we move on to the Five Point Diamond Motif or the Maltese Cross.  The following diagram shows the the structure of the five point motif. It can be considered as a square or a diamond depending on how we place the diagram.

Outlining the Maltese Cross

We have already done outlining of the single diamond motif. Keep the following points in mind. The beginning and end points are the outward extensions of the same corner. Always keep the thread under the needle while inserting needle at the corners. We rotate the frame during each step which helps to get a rapid idea of where to move  the needle and thread next. 

Kutch Work Tutorials

I am planning to upload some Kutchwork tutorials in my blog. There are many tutorials available in the internet. I tried some of them. I succeeded in doing the the basic diamond, 3 diamond and 5 diamond motifs. But when it reached The Double Maltese Cross , I was in trouble. After a gap of  few days, I will start again 'Learning Kutchwork'. Most of the time, I have to go through all the saved notes in my computer and try again and again to complete the three & five diamond motifs. I was fed up with this type of learning. May be, I was a bad student. I thought I could never learn the technique and remember it forever.

I have a friend - Maya who knows the Kutchwork well. She learned it from her neighbour Madhavi who is an expert in hand embroidery. With the help of her, I managed to learn the technique of kutchwork. And I am going to share all those simple simple techniques of Kutchwork with you. After you  master  basic diamond and  3 diamond &  5 diamond motifs, I think you won't need any further help to do more complex designs. Anyway, hope you will enjoy those lessons.

Herringbone and Double Herringbone Stitches

Herringbone Stitch

To begin, bring the needle up in the lower line. Keep the thread below the needle. Insert the needle down on the upper line a little to the right. Take a small stitch to the left and bring the needle up. 

Now insert the needle on the lower line a little to the right  and take a small stitch to the left as done before. 

Repeat the steps to make enough herringbone stitches

Make sure that the stitches are of equal size and evenly spaced

Double Herringbone stitch

Now, we have made one row of herringbone stitch. Do another 

row of herringbone stitch in between the first row. You may use a contrast color thread for this. When you make the stitches, weave the thread under and over the first row.  The process of weaving in this manner is known as interlacing. 

Begin at the top line

Insert needle into the lower line, take a small stitch to left and 
bring up the needle.  Pass the needle under (the first herringbone's) thread.

Insert the needle in the upper line and make a stitch to the left. 
Bring up the needle.

Again, weave under the thread

Repeat the process to make a second  row of Herringbone stitch

The upper set is made with more spacing of stitches

Kutch Work Peacock

My peacock is ready now. Although the kutch work is finished earlier, i have to finish the other parts. First, I thought of doing it in stem or outline stitch. But finally worked it in satin, long and short, herringbone and magical chain stitches.... Here is my peacock.. Have a look..........

Kutch Work in Progress....

I got a lovely Kutch work design from a design book which my friend bought for me. It is a peacock design.... I was not so confident to do it.. So I started doing it on a piece of white century cotton cloth. I plan to use it as a hand kerchief.

Pink Linen Pillow Cover

This is my second work on a pillow cover. I bought linen material from a shop in Ruwi and stitched two pillow covers to do embroidery. Only the first one I completed. It was a long process. I got the design from net. It was consisting only a horizontal border. I made it as a corner design by arranging it horizontally and vertically by joining the two stems at a point. Simple!

And here is the completed work.

For stems, I used stem stitch. Leaves done in fishbone stitch and the buds with network outlined with outline stitch.  Network I learned from LAKSHMI's sadalas.blogspot.com.

http://sadalas.blogspot.com/2010/03/network-embroidery-vedeo-tutorial.html
                                                   &
http://sadalas.blogspot.com/search/label/Net%20work

Beginner's Hand Embroidery

This is my first hand embroidery work which I did on an off white pillow cover....

Cute birds on off white pillow cover

Bird on the left side

Bird on the right side

I got the design from internet. I used stem, chain, outline, lazy daisy & back stitches to complete each small bird. It was a simple work. But took 2-3 days to complete.

Alan's Farewell day in KG2

March 22nd was Alan's last day of the school year. They had a class party arranged in school. Usually on such party days, we-the mothers have to send 3 packets of snacks for our kid's friends. They will share it in school. Most probably Alan used to bring back home at least 2 packets each time complainig that there were enough snacks, nobody took more...

He was in the F-section of Indian school. Luckily he and his friends got the same teacher for their KG1 and KG2 - Ms. Subha Shetty. She is such a wonderful teacher... Alan & his dishum dishum friends used to trouble their mam a lot. Even then she loved and cared them very much. On the last day of their class, she was really upset and was in tears...

I sent with Alan a small handkerchief for his Mam as a humble gift from our side... Given a picture of the hanky below.

I completed it within one and half days... On 21st night I sat till  3am in the morning to finish the work, washed it and then kept it for drying. Then went to bed... I didnt get the exact font for the wordings first, then dropped the idea. Then my friend Maya gave me the idea of using Alan's handwriting for the wordings. It worked out on the next day since he was 'busy'. Although the work is not so satisfactory, I liked it -  Especially when my husbad had a glimpse of smile on his face when he saw the finished hanky. The work is not so neat... but even then I liked it...

Some more pictures of the individual flower pots.

Flower pot 1

Flower pot 2

Flower pot 3

Sayonara

Jisha