Mirror Work - 3, Buttonhole frame mirror work

 Hi all

Hope all are doing well and staying safe.  I have started a mirror embroidery series and the first two tutorials are done already.  You can view them here and here.  Today I am happy to share with you the next tutorial of mirror work using buttonhole stitch  It forms a nice frame for the mirrors.  Mirror work sarees and blouses are in trend sometime back but now minimal mirror work kurtis are back with the mirror work around the neck and sleeves. 

Let's move on to the tutorial.  For this tutorial I have used a 1.5cm diametre mirror.  

First attach the mirror to the fabric with fabric glue.

Now let us anchor the mirror to do the frame.

Bring the needle up through 1, In through 2.

Up through 3, In through 4

Up through 5, In through 6

Up through 7, In through 8

Now, Bring the needle up through 9, In at 10

Up through 11, In at 12

Up through 13, In at 14

Up through 14, In at 15.

We can do this anchoring without gluing the mirror to the fabric.  But it will be a bit difficult since the mirror moves.  So it is always better to glue the mirror first. 

The next step is to frame around these stitches using buttonhole stitches/blanket stitches.

Bring the needle up through the fabric at any one point outside the mirror. 

Insert the needle through the anchoring stitches from inside out as shown above.

Pull through and tighten the stitch.

Before starting the buttonhole stitches, do a back stitch to the right of the running thread.

Pull through the thread, a buttonhole stitch is formed. 

Again insert the needle under the anchoring threads from inside and bring it out with the working thread under the needle.  Pull through the thread and the next buttonhole stitch is formed.

Continue in the same manner around the mirror, keeping the buttonhole stitches close as much as possible.

After completing the around the mirror, the frame will look like this.  Anchor the thread at last inside the first buttonhole stitch formed using back stitch. 

To add more beauty to the mirror, I added detached wheat ear stitch around the buttonhole frame.

Then added french knots to the tip of wheatear stitch and long french knots in between the wheatear stitch

There are so many ways to embellish the mirror work.  You can add sugar beads instead of french knots.

Hope this tutorial is useful. Will be back with another interesting post.  Till then, have a nice day.

This post has been linked to 

Friendship Friday Blog Hop