Friday, December 02, 2005

Bullion Knots - Yuck!



Today I discovered that I hate Bullion knots. I had never tried them before, and I had a pattern for a beautiful box cover in an old issue of Cross Stitch and Needlework that I had always wanted to do. Thought I would finally get around to it and do it for my mom for Christmas. I got the center motif done except for the bullion knot rose yesterday. Now as you can see in the pic, I can do a reasonably good bullion knot if I work at it really hard. I even managed to do a whole rose plus the one bud off to the side. BUT, it took almost an hour of cursing and redoing and knoted mess of thread and frustration to accomplish this. By the time I finished it I knew there was no way I could do the whole boxtop, which has an oval border of these hellish things.

Not willing to just scrap what I'd already done I turned it into an ornament. I'm not really happy with the finishing - so I think I'll just keep it for my own tree rather than giving it away. I did think I might use it as a teacher gift or something, but it doesn't look professional enough for me to do that.

So now back to the drawing board for finding something to do for mom for Christmas. I may do a hardanger doily - I dunno....

2 comments:

Jill in CA said...

Your ornament looks just fine! Is it possible you could substitute something else for the bullion knots in the box top? Good luck finding something to make your mom.

Kari Boardman said...

The ornie is very pretty. I have always had a hard time figuring out bullion knots as well! Could you do spider web roses instead? This are easier and go really fast. You can use thread or silk ribbon.