Allegro

This summer, as reported in my entry of 27th August, we attended the American Needlepoint Guild Seminar in Houston, Texas. One of the classes I attended while we were there was "Allegro". This was designed and taught by Debbie Rowley of DebBee's Designs.

I had various reasons for choosing this class. We met Debbie in Edinburgh in early 2019. We had an enjoyable lunch at the National Museum of Scotland and talked for ages about embroidery. After meeting her I thought it would be fun to go on one of her classes. When the class schedule appeared on the ANG website I liked the look of Allegro, I think it was the shapes and colours that attracted me. The piece uses a number of Jean Hilton stitches. I had never tried Hilton stitches, so that was a third good reason for selecting the class.

I finished Allegro this week. It measures 8" square on 18 count canvas and it took me 62 hours to stitch.

Did I enjoy the class?
Immensely. Debbie is a great teacher. I loved that she used videos to demonstrate the stitches, projecting them large on the screen, working them at an angle where her fingers never obscured the stitch she was demonstrating.

Did I like the Jean Hilton stitches?
I think I am going to have a love-hate relationship with them. I really like the way the curves are created by using quite long straight stitches, but I had major issues with counting and thread length. Once I had worked out that if you keep the shape in your mind the first stitch is the only one you need to count. After that the others follow it round in sequence and the Jessica Stitches become less terrifying.
I think my main difficulty was with the thread lengths. I tend to use the 'finger-tip to elbow' measure when preparing threads for stitching, Hilton stitches need longer lengths. I suffered from knots, fraying (mainly because I had to keep unpicking) and loops.

Did I enjoy stitching Allegro?
Yes and no. Overall, I loved it, but it was a struggle. I thought the 'Double Fab Doubled' in the centre was difficult until I started on the Parallelogram Jessica Stitches (the dark green ones). It's not that the method is any different from the smaller Jessica, but to do each one with a single thread requires a length of over 100 inches. I just couldn't handle that, but after numerous knots, curses and restarts I found the best way was to use half that length and do each one in two parts. It was still a very long thread compared to my usual, but definitely easier to control. (Though no doubt I looked silly with my arms stretched out to keep the thread taut and stop it knotting, twisting or unravelling.) The Parallelogram Jessicas alone took nearly 14 hours.

Will I use Hilton Stitches in my own designs?
You never know! I may have found them frustrating at times, but Debbie has made Hilton Stitches interesting and less daunting by creating and teaching this beautiful design.