Maria and Baby Jesus
Not much of baby Jesus is seen. The embroidery starts with the facial outline. For the halo a double row of Chain stitches (coton à broder No. 20) was wrapped.
Up from there rays, alternating long and short, were embroidered with Wide Stem stitches.
Next the facial outline of Maria (2 strands of 6-ply stranded cotton) was worked.
The top of Maria´s dress is partly covered by the halo. So thread withdrawal is difficult. I decided on Wave stitches as the filling pattern and worked it over four fabric threads in the height.
Next is to outline the dress with Slanting Wide Stem stitches (coton à broder No. 16).
For the bottom part of the dress, I withdrew threads leave 3, cut 1, because it is easier to embroider.
This area of the dress was also filled with Wave stitches.
For the coat I first thought of a Diagonal Cross stitch filling. But looking to the back side of Joseph´s shirt, I discovered by chance a wonderful filling pattern for Maria´s coat – the back side of Honeycomb Darning stitches!
So thread withdrawal was done in one direction only and, at the bottom edge, staggered to the withdrawn threads of the dress.
The stitches can also be worked from the front; in that case the working direction is from left to right.
Thus an elegant and unobtrusive pattern was created for Maria´s coat.
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