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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Herringbone Eyeglasses Case

So here is what the eyeglasses case looks like when all the stitching is done. For this case I used two skeins #5 DMC Perle in a bright gold and one skein in a medium turquoise. I also used one spool of #16 Kreinik Braid and the dark turquoise band was done with a small amount of Vineyard Silk. I think I may have devoted approximately 12 hours to the stitching but count on at least a half hour on the marking of the canvas and 2 hours for the hand finishing. The golden felt is what I will use as the lining. I would have preferred to have used a faux suede but since I'm snowed in today I'll use what I have on hand.

The next step is to cut even the sides and ends of the unstitched canvas and then either by machine or hand, stitch across the ends so that the stitches stay in place. I chose to use machine stitch here right up to the edges of the stitching. Once done the stitches will be secure.

At this point, I will cut the long strands hanging from the right hand side of the picture.
The reason that the strands are so long is because I used one full strand of Perle Coton for each row. In other words, once you removed the label from the Perle and untwist the thread into it's circle, cut the circle and one of those strands constitutes a full strand. Yes you could save on thread by cutting shorter strands, but you will waste time doing so.

Next I cut my lining to 12 1/4 length and laid it on top of the "right" side of the stitching. Stitching the ends together and then turning the piece in side out leave a nice turned under look.

Now comes the fun part. You have to fold the case in half, folding in all the selvages and start whip stitching the sides together catching the lining and covering any exposed canvas threads. It made sense to me to leave the top sides open a bit for easy access for my larger sunglasses.
I would like to mention that I enjoyed stitching this piece far more than I liked finishing it. I used #3 Perle Coton to whip the sides together and began with using a size 20 tapestry needle and finished everything off using a large eyed darning needle to go through all the layers.
Taa Daaaaaaaaaaa!

5 comments:

  1. Hi Madonna,

    The eyeglass case looks great!

    Let us know when you are taking orders. :-)

    Cynthia
    Windy Meadow

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  2. Looks WONDERFUL!! I still have to do the finishing, hope to have it done for the next ANG meeting show & tell.

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  3. This is really very nice and I absolutely love the colors. Design is very pretty too.

    Pierrette =^..^=

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  4. Nice job. I'll try to remember your directions for finishing when I do another eyeglass case! Yours turned out really nice.

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  5. Thank you Pierrette I am glad you like it, the stitching is so easy and quick, these are great for gifts. I would like to try another non-stranded thread instead of the Perle as I think Perle gets fuzzy with use. Any suggestions out there? Thanks again to those of you that took the time to comment, I always look forward to feedback.

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