On day 1 of this series we looked at the definition of evenweave. Yesterday, on day 2, we looked at the four 38 count linens with which I am familiar, and whether they are really evenweave.
Today we’re going to look at what to do if you have the linen for your Portuguese Whitework project and you discover it is not evenweave.
At the beginning of 2010, my family and I spent three months in Ethiopia. My husband was volunteering at an international school there, our children attended the school, and I just went along for the ride and learned how to run a household in a very different environment than what I was used to.
I’d decided to start the process of writing Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães with the largest project – the tablecloth – because that would probably keep me going for the whole time we were there (it certainly did!). I took some lovely Portuguese linen to work on. As we learned yesterday the Portuguese linen was the least evenweave of the four 38 count linens I have now used. But I didn’t know that at the time!
The first step was to work the counted tacking so that I knew that everything was going to end up in the right place. As I worked, it didn’t seem right. The square turned out very rectangular! I counted and counted and counted again, to make sure everything was right. All the counting was correct.
Oh no! The fabric wasn’t properly evenweave!
When you’re in Ethiopia, there’s nowhere local that you can go to get some replacement 38 count linen. I could have asked someone at home to purchase some for me and send it over, but that would have taken time and I didn’t even know of a source of other 38 count linen at the time!
I had to make do.
What do you do when you need evenweave linen, and the linen you have turns out to not be evenweave?
You fudge. 🙂
And so, I fudged. I realised the only way I could make it turn out looking square was to make adjustments to the thread counting, to add more threads into the short side, to bring it out to approximately the same length as the other side.
I worked out, through a process of trial and error, that if I added 2 extra threads into every repeat along the short side, it came out about the same as the longer side. I chose the places to include those two extra threads in each repeat (I made it so that some of the wrapped bars had 7 threads rather than the usual 6), and then had to remember that along that side, the counting was different for the tacking. Eventually I did it, and it worked out fine.
This is the sort of process you’ll need to go through if you have linen you have to use for your Portuguese whitework, and you discover it is not as evenweave as you would like it to be.
If you know the thread count of the total design, tack that out on the fabric for each dimension. You will see how much longer one side is than the other. Measure the long side and the short side over the full thread count of the design. Deduct the shorter measurement from the longer one. This measurement (in cm or inches) is the difference between the two sides. Using the measurement of the difference, lay that along the SHORT side, and count how many threads fit into that distance. Whatever that works out as is how many extra threads you need to add into that side to fudge it so that it matches the other side. If you have 60 extra threads, you’ll need to evenly distribute those 60 threads into the shorter side of the design.
This is not the easiest thing to do! Make sure you use counted tacking to lay out the whole design before you start any of the real stitching or you’re just going to get lost! And when you’re tacking along merrily, it can be difficult to remember to add those extra threads in where they are needed. But stick with it, and make sure you do it right, because in the long run, the results will be so much better for your perseverance!
Again, if you have any questions about this, please ask. There have been some really interesting questions asked and comments made over the last few days, so if you haven’t already read them, you may like to go back and check them out. Tomorrow, I think we will deal with the big question of to pre-wash or not to pre-wash.
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