Some time ago I told you about my wonderful gift and how it has started me off on a Candlewicking adventure and so I thought it time to check in and show you my progress and show you my Candlewicking Adventure –  How to Make a Colonial Knot.

I have no order to follow with the blocks so just selected one and popped it in the hoop!

Now for those of you not familiar with the process of Candlewicking, it is simply a series of knots!  The pre-traced blocks look like this:

This is my third block’

Each little dot is where you make a knot and the closed lines are where I will be doing a backstitch.  The little  flowers are to be daisy stitch.

The knot is called a Colonial Knot and after a lot of searching and reading, I tried to follow a description of starting but found it too difficult so decided to use Nanny’s way of doing things and it is working fine.

I start off with a length of thread and bring my needle up from under the block into one of the dots – I have been coming up right on one edge of the dot.

You then wind the thread around the needle in a figure 8 – so first this way (do this by holding the thread in one hand and moving the needle over and under)

and then this way

I then insert the needle back down through the other side of the dot (you don’t want to go back down the same hole you came up from as there would be a possibility of the knot being pulled through)

You can see me pulling the thread so the knot forms down at the bottom of the needle.

 

You need to hold the thread taut as you pull the needle through to get uniform knots.

When my thread is nearing the end I take it to the back, insert it under the last stitch and tie it off and then weave it back along the row a bit. It is then ready to be trimmed.  I need to go back and do the same with the start of my thread as well.

This is the first block I finished

I love how it looks and couldn’t wait to start on Block 2 and I have now completed block 2 as well!

I find this process really relaxing and it is something I can do at night (in front of the telly) quite comfortably as the hoop just sits on my lap.  Do you have a ‘switch off’ activity? What do you like to do ‘in front of the telly’?

I would love to hear from you (so I know I’m not chatting to myself) so please leave a comment.  I love it when you do and I will always reply just as soon as I can.

Until next time

Nanny xx