Embroidered Book Cover - Back Flap Finished

Yay!

I've put the velvet I intend using for the actual book cover behind the back flap panel for the scan.

After trimming, I gently rolled the edges between my fingers, folded them over and sewed them down so the lines of couched gold thread were right on the edges of the panel.

It is now ready to be used. It's got a bit of 3D'ness about it because the panel has a bit of thickness to it from the folded edges.

I'm thinking about cutting a piece of felt to insert in the middle of the back, to fill the rectangular gap where the edges don't meet - so the whole panel will be properly raised, rather than just being raised by the folding over of the double layer of material (brocade and muslim) at the edges.

Next is to finish adding gold thread to the front piece, then hemming it in the same way.

I'm very very pleased with how the back flap has turned out. :-)

Someone (I think it was a lady called Margaret) commented the other day that she couldn't believe that this is my first project.

It isn't.

If you pull up the posts with the tag "Embroidery" and travel backwards you will see :-

(and I will have have to do something about the specificity of my general "Embroidery" tag now I've done a big embroidery project. It was easy keeping the smaller projects all under one tag, but this book cover has resulted in a lot of posts)

* the frontspiece for the book cover (my first experience with Elizabethan work)

* A panel that was originally intended to be for the book cover, but I gave it to a friend who was very ill. I have a second unfinished panel with me, but by the time all this happened I had learnt a lot and decided to start afresh, and change the design to the current one.

It contained some very naively worked raised goldwork (just gold thread sewn over a padding of wool thread) and my first attempts at satin stitch

* a stumpwork poppy, and a

* a stumpwork dragonfly - where I learnt buttonhole stitch, and how to do detached pieces

The other embroidery I have done, which is not shown in my blog is

* one of the smaller of the Jane Nichols stumpwork projects (which I didn't end up liking)

* a stumpwork piece that was my first - I gave it away and have regretted it ever since

* 1 completed cross-stitch, and 2 uncompleted ones. I have decided that cross-stitch is beyond me. I just don't enjoy having to keep my place that closely on a pattern.

* around 5 pieces of bargello

* a piece that had the pattern already on the canvas, which I did in tent stitch - a Jacobean tree of Life bell pull. I also have "The Maiden and the Unicorn" and it's more than half done but I've lost the wools, since I'm now talking about 18 years ago.

So I've been doing bits and pieces for years. It's only now that I'm developing a serious interest in it.