Time to play about with a pattern again. This little motif has been sitting in the wings, waiting for it's turn to get some attention. There is a gap of a couple of years between making the two pieces, just long enough to find I had too many bobbins with coloured thread ends still attached which had reduced the number of useable bobbins.
The same pattern was used for both, but I chose to start some plaits in different places, miss out some picots, and change colour of some tallies. Instead of running the threads through the cloth stitch trails to throw them out, which leaves a small streak of colour, I tied the thrown out threads off. Where I needed to throw a plait out, I hid it in the tally where I could, or hid different colours inside a whipped stitch, throwing single threads out as needed.
This gifted pattern is shown in several different guises along with the full motif shown in the photo. A small center motif with a smooth edge, an edge only motif which could be used as a photo frame, or to put your own center inside, and a combined 9 pin edge and center motif.
I used mostly Empress Mills 29 wraps per centimeter thread (they have 56 colours!) but I suspect some bobbins may have contained Dewhurst's Sylco thread, maybe even a bit of DMC Broder Machine 30. They are all 100% cotton, practically the same thickness, so work well
I would love to see this made all in one colour, or even in white, which is what I prefer to use for a first time working a design. The full motif takes about 52 pairs working both sides at once from top to toe.
