Design Name and Theme
The design name is "The Butler Did It". It is a bookmark from a leaflet (CSB-29) from Cross My Heart entitled MARK MY WORDS. It was done as part of a Christmas gift for my cousin who is an avid mystery reader. It accompanied one of the books from the Sr. Agatha Mystery series entitled PRODIGAL NUN. This was very fitting as my cousin is a nun.
Tools and Techniques Used
It was stitched on a piece of mustard colored 14-ct. Aida that was in my stash. It was a straight forward cross stitch pattern. The pants of the butler's uniform were vertically backstitched between every column of stitches. While this could have been done with long stitches, These might get caught through use so all lines were completely backstitched. All crossstitches were done using 3-ply thread and all backstitching was done using 2-ply of thread which was my choice and not that recommended.
Advice
- Make a photo copy of the pattern before you start stitching the butler's pant. Mark off each stitch as you go as the pants are stitched using DMC 318 (Med. Gray) and 415 (Lt. Gray). The backstitch lines in the pattern make it difficult to keep track of the subtle stitch changes throughout the pants.
- This is not an area to do if you are tired. If you make a mistake in the pattern, you do not have to frog it because the backstitching and closeness of colors hides the error.
- This was stitched on fabric I had on hand. There should have been a great margin on each long side of the bookmark.
