This deep purple Agapanthus Blackjack is the flower of the year at Chelsea Flower Show. It was developed by de Wet plant breeders in South Africa. Congratulations!
I can see why the name Blackjack was chosen. It's the most extraordinary colour.
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| Andy de Wet with Agapanthus Blackjack (Courtesy: Boom in Business) |
It's lovely to have this snippet of good news from South Africa among the stories of the difficulties the country is facing with the ongoing extensive power cuts.
I've been binding another round embroidery frame, or hoop, with cotton twill tape. Binding improves the grip of the frame on the embroidery fabric and keeps it taut in the frame. Here are some tips to make the process easier.
I used laundry pegs to hold the tape in place. Both my plastic pegs and the stainless steel ones worked well.
While wrapping the tape around the wooden hoop, control the roll of tape by unwinding a short length and then insert a pin into the roll. This way you keep it from taking on a life of its own and rolling away onto the floor - way out of reach!
I usually overlap the tape as I bind around the hoop because I have found that the tape doesn't easily shift on the frame. Overlapping it does however use a fair bit of tape.
So, this time to save on my dwindling supply of tape, I'm placing each wrap next to the previous one, without any overlap. I've stitched a few stitches on the inside of each wrap to keep the tape in place. You may just be able to see the stitches if you click on the photo below and enlarge it.
If you are planning on binding a frame, I hope these tips will be helpful. For an in-depth tutorial on binding a hoop, have a look at Mary Corbet's blog here on Needle 'n Thread. Mary also has a subsequent update on the tutorial which you can see by clicking here. There's plenty of useful detail in the tutorials especially if binding a hoop is something new to you.
I've just returned from a wonderful trip to visit my daughter and family in Dubai. I took a small stitching project with me and picked it up only once! Now to recover from the jetlag and get back to some embroidery.
'Till next time, happy stitching - perhaps with your newly bound frame!
