Hardanger bookmark finishing technique

I mentioned in my previous post about my Hardanger bookmark that I had used a new finishing idea for it, that I’d thought up in a lucid moment.

Rachel of Virtuosew Adventures asked if I would tell about the technique. Well, its nothing revolutionary, it was just something I hadn’t tried before!

I had planned just to have the sides of the bookmark go to the back and join with a seam. Because there is cutwork in the centre of the bookmark, it meant that the join needed to be at the side, because in the centre it would land right underneath the cutwork area.

I had then planned to fringe the ends of the bookmark back to the four-sided stitch, not unlike I have done on my Sapphire Hardanger Bookmark. However on that bookmark, it has four-sided stitch down the sides but not at the ends.

With this bookmark, I had four-sided stitch around the entire edge of the bookmark. I wondered if I could turn the the fabric to the back right at the edge of the four-sided stitch, along the sides and the ends. (Along one long side, I had left enough fabric to fold across the whole back, so that the back would be covered.) Then I could have the seam around three sides of the bookmark.

Rather than just making it a plain rectangle, I added a tassle in at one end. This was made from the perle coton 8 that I used for the Algerian eyelets. I used a simple ladder stitch to join the front and back and neatly disappear into the seam.

So, putting it simply, the technique was simply to make the seam along three sides, right at the edge of the four-sided stitch. I think it makes the edge just a little more decorative than techniques I had used before.