Chicken Little #96 - Reversed Buttonhole Bar

I've had this chicken drumstick in my stash of chicken images for ages, just waiting for a chance to use it.  I'm sure some will think 'but thats not a chicken' but well this is my 'Chicken Little' project and from the start the idea was that somewhere in the project there would be a chicken.  Not necessarily a whole chicken, just a chicken.  And besides it makes me giggle to include it.

I don't think I mentioned this stitch earlier this week.  The tutorial on Pintangle is here.  I've used it to create the circle around the drumstick.

The Tree

The tree is done.  Its definitely got some issues with puckering and I don't think they're due to the fabric.  I think its all me - dang it!

Learnings:

• I had to add some fabric to the edges to fit my 8 inch round frame, which meant I had two different types of fabric and I only did a single row of straight stitch to join them.  So they weren't that well secured.
• I really should've used a rectangular frame.  Or been a bit braver about squashing stitches.
• With the tree trunk to one side and then the mass of French knot flowers completely covering the width of the image I probably should have either used a stabiliser on the back, or even used a second layer of fabric as a backing fabric.

But...  I still love it.  I'm so pleased to have that hilly background.  I'm pleased I used my back to front version of split stitch for the tree trunk as its given it more texture than true split stitch would've done.  The rocks in the front could've done with some padding behind them or even a small darker thread around the edge of them to make them stand out a bit more.  But for a first effort I'm pretty chuffed.  Puckers and all.  I'd definitely use this printable fabric again.

So what to do with the puckers?

I've found a few tutorials to try and remove some of the puckering and I'm going to try this one from Mary Corbets Needle'n'Thread.  I would've loved to have a go at it today but I need to go and buy a cork board or a piece of polystyrene/foam.  I did try the ironing board but its not padded enough.

Here's the post to the 'damp blocking' tutorial on Needle'n'Thread

So here's the finished tree in all its puckered and un-ironed glory.  I'll let you know how the blocking goes.  I'm hoping if it doesn't help too much maybe a professional framer might be able to help, or at least hide the worst of the puckering with a nice mat.  😀  Either way I'm glad I tried it.

Now I'm just feeling a bit lost as to what to do.  The black work idea is there, but I want something I can pick up and do straight away, so I'll have to put my thinking cap on.  

That's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by.