Thinking Back And Front...

...albeit coincidentally, at least at first.  Working on the last page of the book, I decided I wanted something as textured as the chenille whipped stitches, but not using chenille (mutter, mutter)...so chain stitch, it was.

I rather like that.  I liked the way it worked on the reverse, too.

Pure fluke, I have to say...but then I started to think about it all in earnest.  The simplest thing to do, would have been to have worked more chain stitch within the motif, but that didn't work for two reasons...firstly, I thought it was boring.  And predictable. Secondly, and more importantly, the motif stretches over two pages, and I wanted something to work across the fold, and that meant something other than just reinforcing the overall motif.  So, I worked long stitches on the 'tail' of the motif, but quickly realised two things...one, that the need to fold the paper would mean that those long stitches were likely to gape, or at least, move around, and the second, that it would give nothing to look at on the reverse, other than a small stitch top and bottom, if that.  So, killing two birds with one stone, I couched the long stitches down, using the same thread.  And because it is a hand dyed thread, with variations in colour and tone, it reads, close up, as if it was a different thread.  That was, I got lines on both sides of the paper, clearly delineating this section of the motif.  Hurrah.

More tomorrow (I ran out of steam).