This Hungarian Redwork Runner project is really quite enjoyable.
I know! I know! It looks like it would be monotonous! I thought that by now, I’d be bored with it and barely pushing myself to pick it up occasionally. But in fact, I love sneaking 15 Minutes here and there to work on it. And because it’s easy to transport, I can grab it and take it with me hither and yon, when venturing out.
It’s proved to be a nice little companion.
Errr…. “little companion” is inaccurate. This isn’t what I’d call a “little” piece. After working on 1″ – 2″ little embroidered things quite a bit this past year, every time I picked up the Hungarian runner (which has a 15″ x 36″ embroidered area), it felt like a behemoth.
Huge.
Ginormous, as my niece would say.
But the stitchery itself is quite easy – just two stitches, the Hungarian braided chain stitch and regular chain stitch. So reaching the half-way point wasn’t exactly hard work.
And, in fact, I’ve even gone beyond the halfway point.
No, no!! Not THAT far beyond!!
Ah, Photoshop. You have taken away that delightful surprise at the end, when the Whole is revealed. Still… it was fun to see what it will look like! And in Photoshopping the half into a whole, I discovered that I’ve actually missed a couple curlicues. Can you find them?
One reader asked a very good question – why did I leave a big blank space in the middle of the runner? Why the rectangular white area, and not solid embroidery?
Well, since this is a table runner, and since we usually have a centerpiece in the middle of the table – bowls of fresh flowers, candles, sometimes a fruit bowl – the white area gives plenty of room to arrange something pretty in there, without the centerpiece sitting on the embroidery.
I suppose not everyone uses centerpieces, though, and without a centerpiece, this big open space might look rather silly. If you’re not a centerpiece person and you want to make the runner, I’d suggest fiddling with the embroidery pattern to create more of a continuous filled area.
So, the runner is beyond the half-way point now, and I’m not tired of it yet! Can’t wait to get the embroidery finished so that I can show you the finish work. I’ve got some edge plans!
Two additional points:
On ironing: I ironed the finished half, so that I could get some decent photos. When ironing something like this, use a padded surface (I explain about ironing embroidery in this article), and iron on the back, with the embroidery face down on the padded surface. Normally, I don’t like ironing a piece I haven’t washed, but this piece is pretty clean, so I’m not too worried about it. If you have any areas on your embroidery that are soiled (especially hoop mark areas), do not iron it until it has been washed well.
On thread: I’ll run out of red coton a broder 25 before I’m finished. I started with six skeins, and I have one full skein and a tiny bit on a second skein left. So getting to the half-way point requires about 4.5 skeins of DMC coton a broder 25 in color 321.
I know there are some folks out there working on this project, too – I’ve heard from two ladies from South Africa, a couple Australians and a few Americans. How’s it going? If you’re working on it, I’d love to hear your progress!
If you want to follow along with the Hungarian Redwork Runner project from start to finish, including set up and how-to along the way, visit the Hungarian Redwork Runner project index, where you’ll find all articles related to the project listed chronologically.
