Last time we looked at the Medallion project, I was venturing into the monogram area, working long & short stitch filling over felt. At the time, I saw long & short stitch as a good answer to the whole “filling the monogram” question – it provides a solid fill relatively quickly and it’s a fairly forgiving stitch.

I don’t regret the decision to go with long & short stitch at all. But one thing I didn’t bargain for was the fact that stitching that many stitches through felt and linen and backing fabric can be pretty painful – and I’ve got the holes in my thumb and finger to prove it!

So far, I’m pretty happy with the outcome and eager to get the central monogram in the design finished.

Here, you can see the left side of the A filled up with long & short stitch.

The embroidery is worked with one strand of Soie d’Alger. This creates a smooth surface with the long & short stitch – not quite as smooth as satin stitch, but almost. There’s just a hint of texture (more like a sense of stitchiness) in the surface of the stitching, but overall, the effect is smooth.

As far as color goes, out of the four shades of blue used in this project, I’m using the second to the lightest shade on the A. The M will be worked in the lightest shade. Between these two shades, there isn’t that much difference, so there isn’t much of contrast – the change in shade is very subtle. The reason I didn’t go for high contrast in the two letters that make up the whole monogram is that I want to keep the central monogram looking like one element, rather than like two different elements overlapping each other. The gold outline that will eventually surround the lettering will separate the overlapping parts of the monogram, but from a distance, the whole thing should look like one element, rather than two.

You can see that the felt lifts the lettering up pretty well, letting it stand out from the background in relief. For the direction of stitching, I followed the flow of the letter, except for the horizontal bar in the middle of the A and at the top of the A, where the stitching is worked vertically over the bars.

Next time we visit this project, I’ll show you the completed A, and after that, I’ll move on to the fleurs de lis on the sides of the M before tackling the M. The fleurs de lis will incorporate some subtle shading and will not be worked over felt – but more on that later!

Well, that’s progress so far! Can’t wait to finish the whole center area and move on to the outside edge and the goldwork & silk roses! My deadline for the whole project is the first week of April. Will I make it? I guess we’ll see!

All the articles on the Medallion Project are listed here in one index, so if you’d like to see the project develop from concept into reality (with a few bumps and bruises along the way), feel free to check out that list of articles!