Japanese Embroidery: Short-Stitch Holding

When last I left off, I was beginning a technique in Japanese embroidery called short-stitch holding.  It's a method for holding the foundation threads in place when satin stitches travel over an area larger than 1cm.

So here's where I was after the satin stitch foundation...

You can see that I had laid temporary holding stitches at 1cm intervals perpendicular to the weft foundation.  

The orange section to the left is actually the interior of a sake ladle and will not have any goldwork superimposed on top.  In order to secure the foundation, those 1cm lines are used as guidelines for a technique called short-stitch holding and will be removed later.

Each stitch of short stitch holding is 8mm long and holds down three foundation threads at a right diagonal.  

Short-stitch holding stitches actually pierce the foundation threads rather than go in between them in order not to separate the foundation layer.

Once all the short stitch holding is complete, the horizontal temporary holding stitches are removed and the area is firmly held down...

This one small area of short-stitch holding took me about 10 hours to complete.  It can be very time intensive but worth the effort for creating a foundation that holds up over time and use.

When a foundation will have embroidery superimposed on top, temporary holding threads serve to hold the foundation in place while the design is transferred and stitched over top as in the example below.

Those temporary holding stitches keep the foundation secure while I transfer the design and couch the gold threads over top.  The temporary threads will be removed once I've completed the goldwork.  I also remove the tissue transfer section by section in order to preserve the silk underneath the areas that I am not working on.

Likewise, since I've finished the interior of the ladle, I'll keep it covered with tissue to protect the silk while I work on the rest of the piece...

Here's a picture of where I'm heading with these two motifs...the round box on the right and the ladle on the left...

I printed the design for the ladle's honeysuckle vine onto Bienfang tracing paper (I like this brand a lot because it is easy to sew through and tears without leaving too much pulp to pick out...

After basting the tracing, I'm now working on the process of transferring the design using a running stitch...

I'm committed to two hours per day in order to try to finish this and the two other pieces that are required for my graduation in October.

I'm also trying to finish Mrs. Rose within the next month so I hope to work on her once my daily Japanese embroidery commitment is complete.

Happy Monday everyone!  I'm off to stitch...