Hi Everyone,
We are going to be introducing a new element to the #OxCoPALs Gaubles. With this project we decided to have the whip stitching take the main stage. A year ago we posted a whip stitching tutorial on our YouTube channel, teaching you how to do a simple circle coaster finished with whipping. Now, we are going to up the ante a bit.
The first thing to do, before removing the punched Gobbles from your frame is to paint your 1:1 glue/water mixture around on the dotted line. If you chose to punch either the Leaf or the Star pattern, pay attention to the spots where you have points, paint the glue closer to the loop edge (BUT DO NOT PAINT THE GLUE ON THE LOOPS). Once the glue is dried, you can remove the Gobbles from the frame and cut out. You do not have to steam press them yet, you can wait and do that at the end. If you do decide you want to steam press them before whip stitching, you will want to wait for them to dry again. Sometimes steam pressing can cause the glue to get tacky again. If you cut them out while the glue is tacky, the monk's cloth will begin to fray and you could loose the whole project you just spent so much time punching.
You will notice that all of the Gobbles have abnormal shapes. Nothing is perfectly round, you have wavy edges, oblong, or stars with points. These shapes take a bit more to whip around and are great learning opportunities.
We are going to start with the Padulas. This wavy shape is not too bad to whip stitch. It is closest to the circles and a great jumping off point. You will want to remember to whip stitch loosely, don't pull the yarn too tight. When you do, you cause the edge to ruffle as it doesn't have space to breath. Whipping it and keeping the edge a little loose gives it the space it needs to lay flatter.
Whipping the leaves is slightly more complicated if you can believe it. You have points on this project as well as some wavy lines. The oval shapes are easy to manuvar until you get to the points. Here you may want to snip in closer to the punched edge, but not all the way to the punched edge. This is so that you can create a nice shallow v shape.
The stars are where you will see your difficulty points go up. Here you have both points and deep v's that need to be whipped. You may want to cut the monk's cloth at the points so you create a short flat line that can be mitered and would help to create a crisper point. The v's you will want to make a small snip into the v, like you would with the leaves, but not go too far in. This will allow you to whip into the deep v easier and create the nice sharp edge line that you are working towards.
If you are turning your Gauble into a coaster, you are done. If you are creating a garland or bauble, continue to read!
When you are done whipping around the Gauble, you will want to push your needle through the loops near the top (Where the top is, is really up to you). Then you will want to create a long loop and knot it. But leave some room because you are then going to push the needle back through the other side of the top opposite from where you started the loop. Now you can trim the end and you have a lovely loop with which to hang your Gauble!
How did this work out for you? Did you decide to proceed to turn you Gaubles into Baubles or a Garland? Or are you leaving well enough alone and having the Gaubles be a coaster? Let us know!
Next week I will be talking about the different ways to display the Gaubles and how we each decided to.
Until then,
Happy Punching!
~Hannah