Checking out Pinterest a few months back I came across a picture with a link to a picot hemstitching tutorial *here*. I haven't posted a picture as it's not mine to use but anyway I book-marked it and moved on. Later I saw that Soed Idee were doing a hem-stitching class *here* for 'Merklapje met muizentandjes' which translates to 'Sampler with mice teeth'! What a delightful expression. I worked out the cost of the class and travel but it was a little expensive but I knew I just had to learn how to do this 'mice teeth' hem. I emailed Simone who kindly gave me some help. By now it's Christmas and, of course, life got in the way.
After stitching iStitch Designs Sew Forget-Me-Not (details in the post dated January 31) I was wondering how to 'finish' it and thought again about this hem-stitching. I have been hem-stitching samplers for a few years so was not worried about trying something new. As you may or may not know I have a hem-stitching tutorial on my Tutorials blog *here* so I hem-stitched Sew Forget-Me-Not as per my tutorial but added a row of back-stitching with Dentelles 80 around the second 'box' where threads have been removed - you will need to look at my tutorial to understand this. The resulting hem-stitching looked like this:
It's nice but not quite what I was looking for so let's try again. After checking my box of unfinished samplers I found Sew FS 1837 which I designed a few years back but didn't release it. It is stitched on 48ct Nacre linen with AVAS 2925. I repeated the steps as for Sew Forget-Me-Not but then added the extra stitches but ... something was not quite right as instead of 'mice teeth' it just looks like a four-sided stitch border:
With Simone's help I discovered where I was going wrong so it was back to the drawing board or actually back to the box of unfinished samplers where I found a teeny sampler (design area approximately 2" x 1½") stitched 1*1 with a beautiful blue AVAS Soie Surfine on 32ct linen. Unfortunately I have no idea what this sampler is called or who the designer is although for some reason Sajou jumps to mind. If anyone knows the designer please let me know so that I can give them credit. I did the 'normal' hem-stitching adding the back stitches with No 12 Perle cotton as it was a lower count linen. This time all went well and the elusive 'mice teeth' appeared around the edge!
Thank you Simone for your help. I am sure I will be using this pretty finish again.
Thanks for visiting - I hope you haven't been too bored ;-)
Take care
Labels: Hem-stitching, iStitch Designs
Way to go in conquering the "mice teeth", Carol! So, will you be releasing your little sampler pictured in the middle?