Center Piece Hexagon

On Friday Karen posted the next step for this hexagon quilt along called "Soupcon". She suggests we embellish our hexagon with embroidery stitches. I had not taken note of anyone else doing this before I saw her work. It's one of the reasons I joined this project. Go here to see her suggested ideas. This is what I've done to my mine ...

I felt all the fine design lines within my chosen fabric dictated a lacy edge.

I drew a scalloped edge echoing the line that frames the leafy shapes onto my background fabric with a fine white chalk pen. I used a buttonhole stitch with a 2-ply strand of cotton floss to embroider a lacy edge, as well as to cover the lines of the small leaf shapes radiating around the center. Nestled buttonhole stitches filled with a knot stitch accent the points. I also emphasized the dots within the fabric pattern with embroidered knots.

The knot stitch that I prefer to use in all my embroidery is the Colonial Knot. It is more stable than a French Knot ... plus it's fun to make. I wrote a tutorial here.

Another element that I have added is a striped black and white wool yarn. It's machine couched to frame the center fabric. Here's a tutorial I wrote about how I couch yarn in my work. There are two methods presented, one for edges and another for the middle of the work. Scroll down to the second one to see how I sewed the yarn to these centers.

I started to edge this motif with the buttonhole stitch ...

I hadn't made it a scalloped edge because I want to keep this motif secondary to the center one. I'm not liking it, so those stitches will be coming out ... I don't yet know what else will be done instead.

PS: The size of these modified star hexagons is 7" from point to point.