Embroidery Stitch -a-long Part 8. The French Knots (better late than never!!!)

The embroidery on your Victorian Hands Sew Tote Bag is almost done, the last little details to stitch are the small dots on the sleeves. To do so, we will make French Knots with gold metallic thread. 

French Knots is one of my favorite stitch, because it is versatile and fun to make ( once you get how it goes!) I know that for some of you it can be a real ☠️🌪PAIN! Sometimes when all the planets are aligned, you make beautiful ones. And some other times with no reason, you totally mess them! 

French Knots is a very demanding stitch, it requires a surgical protocol and if you follow it step by step, you will never fail them.

I can only recommend that you first give a good go with normal 6 strands cotton embroidery thread. Everything in metallic thread is more difficult, so, make sure that you first tame the French Knots in cotton thread.

So let’ s make the #frenchknot EASY!

The trick is to decompose the gesture, #slowdown and #focus. Quite a meditative and relaxing stitch once you get the rythm. Here is a  little video that I have made to show you how it goes.

I have started the video stitching at my normal speed ( see it s SLOW!) and  have tryied to break down the steps after a couple of knots.

1. Having an #embroiderystand or at least being able to put your #embroideryhoop on a table helps A LOT! You need both your hands for this one. 

2. You will see that I twist my thread around the needle once or twice ( as for this #embroiderypattern I wanted to give this look) but the most important #sewingtip to get is that with your non dominant hand ( I am left handed) you will have to tame your thread all the time. It has to remain perfectly straight and tight.

3. once you poke back you needle down into the right side of the design, (at the place where you want your knot to be) take a second to orientate your needle perfectly vertical and perpendicular to your fabric.

4. at this point slide delicatly the thread ( twisted around the needle) along the needle and towards the fabric and hold it with your non dominant hand. 5. you can now pull your thread slowly through the fabric with your dominant hand and you will have a beautiful French Knot!  I hope this helps. Let me know what you think

But let’ s get back to our Tote Bag. For the small dots on the sleeves, we will make the French Knots with 2 strands of Gold Thread and we will wrap the thread twice around the needle.

TADA!!!!!!......

Your Tote Bag is now fully embroidered, I hope that you will like the result as much as I do. Thanks a lot, Guys, for following this sew-a-long. I had a lot of fun making it.

Talk to you soon( ish)!....

Find all my Embroidery Tote Bag Stitch-a-long posts there: