I am interested in hearing about the problems that people have with bullion stitch – if any!
What goes wrong for you? What bugs you about your bullions? Did you ever have an “a-ha!” moment where you solved something that you had been doing wrong?- what was it that you had been doing wrong, and how did you solve it?
Please let me know about your adventures with bullion stitch, as I’d love to hear about them!
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
totally off topic – did you get an chance (over there in Africa) to read the latest entry on my blog? Makes a lot of sense.
I can’t do bullions. I’ve tried. I’m scared of them now. I’m planning on using your book to teach me.
Hi Megan,
I’ve been trying to get on to your blog regularly here, but it doesn’t always work. The last of your posts (I think) that I read was on your new cushion? Have you posted since then?
I’ve just tried again this morning – and morning is the only time I can get onto blogspot blogs here, if at all – but wasn’t able to. I can try again tomorrow. In the meantime, I wait with baited breath to find out what its about! 🙂
Hope that your health is steadily improving.
Yvette
I put off doing bullion stitch even though I love how they look, then just tried them and loved doing it. Getting the correct needle is obviously important (eye the same size as the shaft of the needle). I had to get my head around doing them sort of backwards from the way I had expected to do them!
I must photograph my hardanger mat with the bullions and put it on my blog
cheers
Julie in Melbourne
Hi Julie,
Yes, you’re right, needle type and size are really important. I’d love to see your Hardanger with bullions, so let me know where to look when you put it on your blog!
Guess what, photographing it may just impel me to actually do the French knots in the centre of the bullion flowers which I have put off for about 5 years!! I have this awful habit of leaving lots of projects 99% finished. Any idea why that is?? Maybe I just like them and feel bad about finishing them!
Julie! Finish that project! 🙂
Used to have a problem with boullions but the needle is the key to success. Used a milliners needle–same width through the length of the needle. Also the turns around the needle are different for different threads–some threads have a Z-twist and some have an S-twist.Other tan that we were taught to stroke the belly of the knot before it was tightened.
Hi Rena, all wonderful tips – thank you.
I’m very disappointed though. The only people I seem to be hearing from can DO bullions well! Doesn’t anyone have trouble with them? Or are you all too afraid to speak? Please do – I want to hear from you!
I can also DO bullions, quite often in fact. Just wanted to say Rena is correct, the thread twist is very important. If you wind the thread around your needle in the wrong direction, it will never work properly. Many people are scared to manipulate the stitch as the thread is pulled through, but that is what helps to even it out.
Hi Carol, Great to hear from you! I agree with you that thread twist is important, however, you CAN wrap either way (clockwise or anticlockwise) and still get a great result. You will just get a *different* result, depending on which way you wrap.
Manipulating the thread when you pull it through is also a good point. You can flick and roll and wiggle your bullions until they sit just the way you want them. I have often shown my students that even if when the pull the thread through the wraps and it goes a bit wonky, that doesn’t mean it has to stay wonky. Usually, with a bit of work and effort, you can a fine looking bullion from that initial mess anyway!
Thanks for your contribution!
Hi Yvette, I might be able to help with the what goes wrong with my bullion stitches…. Mind you, I haven’t embroidered much in the last few years, but the last was bullion stitches.
Sometimes mine come out fine.
Sometimes.
Sometimes though I get a larger loop at one end (the end you start the wrap from), and somtimes my bullion wraps become thinner (tighter?) along the thread as I’m finishing it off (but not evenly so) – hope that makes sense.
But as I am in no way an accomplished embroiderer, I fear that the answer may simply be just loads of practise…
Hi Fiona, thanks so much for your comment. It will really help me to help others as well as you. Yes, practising will help, but you could also try:
1. Make sure all the wraps are pushed to the base of the needle before you pull your needle through. If there is a gap between wraps, it takes extra thread to move from one wrap to the next. This means that when you pull the needle through, there will be extra thread (only a tiny amount, but it could make a difference!) that has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is into the wraps on either side of that gap.
2. After you have pulled the needle through the wraps, but before you enter it into the fabric again, “tickle the tummy” of the bullion. That is, run your needle along the underside of the bullion, between it and the fabric. This will help to even out any anomalies like larger or smaller wraps. Don’t be afraid to push it around – you’re the one who’s boss!
3. Make sure you have enough wraps on the needle to span the entire length of the bullion. I usually do what looks like enough, then one or two extra, just to be sure. If there are not enough wraps, then the wraps at one end will get smaller as the thread reaches to the end.
Hopefully these tips will help to make your bullions even better. I’d love to know if they do help! Please get back to me.
And congratulations on your bullions that already do work!
Oooooh, Yvette, thats just what I need: “Julie! Finish that project!”
🙂
🙂
I’ll find it and choose the yellow for the centres ASAP!!!
hugs
Julie N
PS I always used a straw needle, and sometimes I did get a skinnt sort of one, but I just undid it and tried again, I think its mind over matter, people put off doing them as they think they are tricky, some people even don’t like French knots which aren’t difficult at all.
Hi Yvette, thanks!
Yes thank you they certainly did help 🙂 I tried two flowers today – one with straight petals like a star, and a rose.
My bullions were definitely much firmer, and more consistent with each other. The tickle trick helped on the straight star flower, but I found it hard to do when I made my bullions into a grub rose. However, the rose was still firmer and had more consistent petals than I’ve managed in the past.
thanks again!
Hi Fiona, I am so pleased for you! When you send advice off into cyberspace, you always hope it will help, but you can never be sure!
Yes, I imagine that the tickling would be much more difficult when stitching a rose. Hmmm… Can you try gently rubbing/wobbling a finger back and forth over the bullion, to coax it into shape?
That’s exactly what I did!! Thanks!
Well done! 🙂
How have I missed this post???
All is said already! I do bullion stitches too. In this traditional way I consider the needle the most important too.
Hello Yvette,
Thanks for putting this up on stitchaholics, I am having problems with my bullions. They are not consistent- they work nicely on practice pieces and go wrong on the real pieces. Inconsistency is my enemy and it saps my confidence. I can do them working from A-Z even though I am a L hander but sometimes they don’t sit as tidily as I would like or where I want. Rose buds are not too bad but I don’t seem to be able to have any control where the petals go when I do a flower head. I’m struggling to do a christening robe from AS and E and it specifies the number of wraps for each flower or bud and for the actual rose just gives it 3 petals and I am finding it really hard to get the three petals in the right place. They don’t overlap as they do on the diagrams.I am taking on board the suggestions about needles and will get some when I go to London next week.Also it occurs to me as I write this that if the instructions only give you the number of wraps that on its own is not all the information I need as I really need to know how big a stitch to take as well. Maybe I should not have taken the instructions so literally and gone with my own instincts as to what looks best. Many thanks, Rosy
Hi Rosy,
I agree that having the length of the stitch as well as the number of wraps would make more sense. I think that the way CB write their rose instructions is that you start off with the middle stitches being – for example – 6 wraps, and you work them as long as they need to be to have 6 wraps. A matter of trial and error, I guess. Then when you have the length right for the initial stitches, you adjust the length proportionally for the subsequent stitches and their required number of wraps.
Getting the rose petals to curl around each other nicely DOES take practice. You sometimes have to overlap them more than you think you might need to, so that they go more around the previous one.
Being a left-hander, you should still wrap the same direction as right-handers, but will probably hold the needle and thread with the opposite hands. But make sure you still wrap in the same direction – probably clockwise – here in Ethiopia I don’t have my CB book with me to refer to!
The other advice that I have for you is to relax as much as possible when you are doing them. Don’t think about the ones that didn’t work. Remind yourself that you have done wonderful bullions before, and that you can do them again. Many people get anxious about bullions, but you need to remain calm, and to build your confidence by remembering only the good ones that you have previously done!
Good luck, and let me know how you go with the new needles. I think they will help.