Pendibulle tutorial

You need these materials for a pendibulle:

• Square piece of fabric
• Embroidery floss
• Tapestry needle
• Polyfill, quilt batting or thread clippings
• ~20 cm (7.9'') of ribbon
• Design suitable for corners

I chose 28 count pewter Lugana, some unknown floss from my leftovers, white polyester ribbon and parts of Ring of Roses #1 for the corners.

1. Backstitch a square big enough for your corner motifs on your fabric (my square is 50 x 50 stitches). It is preferred that you use floss which shade is very close to your fabric's shade. I chose a bit darker for this square because it's more visible and therefore better for purpose of tutorial.

   

2. Stitch the motif to opposite corners.

   
   
   

3. Trim off the excess fabric. Leave ~8mm (1/3'') of seam allowance on each side.

   

4. Wash and iron the piece. Iron the the seam allowances to the backside to make the finishing process easier.

   

5. Fold the square so that it becomes a triangle. Note that the corners of the motifs are supposed to be facing each other on the tip of the triangle.

   

6. Take one ~1m (1.1 yards) strand of the floss you used for the backstitching, thread it and attach it securely to the back of the backstitches in the corner.

7. Take the ribbon and knot both its ends. Place the other end to the corner where you start (you can attach it with a pin if you feel like it).

   

8. Use whipped backstitch to sew the pieces together.

9. When you have closed about 75% of the edge, fill the pendibulle. Note that the "wings" shouldn't be filled.

   
   

10. Attach the other knotted end of the ribbon to the tip of the other "wing" and close the seam.

    
    
    

11. Don't end the floss yet, but use it to attach the tips of the wings to each other. You can do this by few small, well hidden stitches in the backstitches.

    

12. Now, you basically have a pendibulle and you can secure and finish your thread.

    

13. ... but I will add one more step and attach the tips of the wings to the body of the pendibulle with few well hidden stitches.

    

14. Then I decided to add a bow to hide the tips (which I had no need to do, it was neatly done, but I wanted to have some decoration).

    

15. Now, it is ready to be hung.

    It wasn't all that difficult, was it?

When I started making this piece I decided to give it away, so, if you wish to have this just leave a comment with your email address before 31st fo March, 2008, midnight and I will draw the winner in April Fools Day.

(Yes, those are chess boards. I was playing CC (as I have recently got badly addicted to it) when I was making this.)

Using 'waste linen'

I can't use waste canvas because of it's starch (I'm allergic to most of it's sources), and therefore tried even weaved linen one day. It worked and since I've used waste linen.

It works fine, in fact I think I may be even better solution than waste canvas, as waste canvas is stiff and linen isn't. Therefore I thought that I could write short tutorial for using waste linen:

Preparations:
• Cut linen piece which is about 5 cms (2 inches) wider and taller than your desired design.
• Stitch horizontal and vertical gridding lines in the exact center of your linen and to the actual fabric.
• Be careful with placing waste fabric, and double-check is it in it's right place - gridding lines are there to help you.
• Baste linen well on it's place.
• Remove gridding stitches from actual fabric (In case you forget them, it may be very difficult or even impossible to get them of when you're finished)

  Stitching:

• Make sure you do not split any threads of your waste fabric.
• Pull your stitches bit tighter than you're used to do normally - otherwise your stitches may end up loose after you've removed linen.
• Finish cross stitching and backstitches.

  Finishing:

• Get yourself pair of good tweezers.
• Do not hurry when removing the strands.
• Linen is more durable when it's moist so in case you have problems when removing it dampen it a bit. (In regular waste canvas you dampen it to make it slippery, with linen you may have to dampen it to make it more durable)
• Do not use excess force if it seems that some strand of linen is not getting off. Leave it be and continue with some other area. Some strands just need to be left last.

In the end it doesn't differ that much from using regular waste canvas.

In case there's something unclear (or I have forgot something), do comment on this post or email me. (You're free to link into this post, but not copy it without my permission - as I like to take all the honour. )

Cross-posted to cross_stitch

And in case you're interested how well it works:

Celtic bookmark

Devil Bear

NOTE #1: Regular evenweaves won't work due the softness of the fiber.

NOTE #2: Only linens with slippery fiber apply (such as these).