I finished my long stitch bargello experiment, which was to make my Kindle cover much prettier. This was prime example of why my business is called Asking For Trouble, in that I woke up with an idea in my head, set to work with minimal planning and hoped for the best.
The Patchwork Party pouch kit was an obvious inspiration, as it reminded me how much I enjoyed tapestry, but also pardalote‘s recent needlepoint poem objects. I thought I could do some bargello using up tapestry wool I have left over from other projects, and that was gifted to me by a family friend. And then my plan had a ??? line that I hoped would eventually result in something I could glue onto my boring but very practical Kindle cover.
I started by measuring my Kindle cover and drawing the outline on tapestry canvas. I then did some research into bargello patterns to find one I liked and settled on this wave. It’s a bit softer than a zigzag and easy to remember as it’s all in threes – each stitch covers 3 holes and the pattern is 3 sets of 3 stitches. I started with shades of blue and pink but I didn’t like how it was looking so I unpicked some of that and continued with 5 colours that looked nice together.
Once I reached the bottom of the rectangle, I filled in the end gaps with the next colour and did the same at the top. I then cut it out of the canvas, assuming that it would be stiff enough to hold together for a border of some kind. Unfortunately, it actually started pulling apart when I tried to add stitches and I really though I was going to have to start again.
Normally I would hate to show off the back of my stitching but this looks so cool! Anyway, my saviour was once again Gutermann fabric glue. I added some felt backing to keep it all together and then used a sharper needle and thinner thread to stitch a simple border. I used the same glue to stick it on my Kindle cover and was very happily surprised to see how perfectly it fitted.
The border was a bit messy with some canvas ends sticking out so I bought some dark grey cord and glued that on top to hide it. I really love how it looks and it feels nice too. We’ll see how well it all holds up to being shoved in my bag but the cover was quite cheap and the tapestry was very quick so I’m sure it will last long enough to have been worth it, and give me some idea how to improve things next time. Plastic canvas would probably be better – or, you know, actually doing some research/tests for how to finish off the edges.
That’s one of my reading goals ticked off and I’ll definitely be doing more tapestry since I still have loads of canvas and wool left to use up.
