Deciding stitches for Mountmellick designs

Today’s post follows on from yesterday’s one about designing Mountmellick embroidery.

When the line drawing is complete, it needs to be traced onto the fabric. Mountmellick embroidery uses white cotton satin jean fabric, which is a beautiful fabric with a soft sheen. The right side is the one with the satin surface.

To trace the design, I usually print out the design from my computer. The fabric needs to be larger than the design, so that it can fit into a hoop or frame with space around the edges. Place the fabric right side up on top of the pattern, and temporarily pin it to the fabric. Using a lightbox, and a sharp HB pencil with a light touch, trace the pattern onto the fabric.

Now, where to put the stitches. Firstly, for Mountmellick embroidery there is a list of generally accepted stitches that are used for the style. These are based on the ones that are found on historical examples of Mountmellick embroidery. They include stitches such as buttonhole, padded satin stitch, French knot, bullion knots, cable plait stitch, coral knot stitch, feather stitch, palestrina knot stitch and chain stitch.

When deciding where to put the stitches, I like to think in terms of contrast: outlines/fillings, full/empty, highly textured/very smooth etc. If we have all of one, and not much of the other, things can look either too boring or way too exciting! We need balance, and that it what I aim to achieve in my stitch placement.

Usually I start off by thinking about the main focal motifs. Often there are some large flowers or a leaf that is very central, that becomes an obvious focus for the work. This focal motif therefore should be rather arresting and eye-catching. It has to work!

I might just start stitching, or I might begin with making some notes of stitch ideas in place on the pattern. I always keep an open mind about these preliminary choices though, as I can sometimes find as I am stitching that they just aren’t working how I want them to. I tend to do a lot of unpicking, so that I can make sure that things work together well.

Sometimes I try to limit my choices of stitches to just a few, preferring instead to use variations of those stitches to provide variety and interest. The idea is not to cram as many different stitches onto the one design! Some of the most beautiful historical Mountmellick works have a very limited palette of stitches, just relying on variations in stitching for contrast and balance.