Embellishment woes

[VikingKvinna]

I have the most beautiful vision in my head, but it's just not coming out right in reality.

My duplicate stitch looks all lumpy and weird, like some jacked up form of embroidery. It's totally a misnomer in my case, b/c it's not duplicating the stitch below at all. Am I missing something? Is it because the yarn isn't anchored on the WS (I am just holding it in place and thought I'd weave the ends in afterwards) ?

And speaking of embroidery, how do you decide which to do -- embroidery or duplicate stitch -- for a given design? Are there any tips/tricks/techniques y'all would care to share with this embellishment novice?

Help free the visions inside my mind! :roll

~nick

[stormintheattic]

In general, I think small things like bugs and flowers and stuff look better embroidered on. Chainstitched, crossstitch or well...the others I use do not translate into English that well.
Larger designs like this http://home.planet.nl/~bosse165/images/wol/stoffen,productenenwolbroeken%20011.jpg look better duplicated on the stitch. IMO that is, the pixie seemed to agree with me.

A general rule for duplicate stitching...don't work vertically but horizontally, the stitch looks better that way. If you are righthanded, work from right to left, to go back, turn you work upside down and work form right to left again. If you are lefthanded, work the other way round. Sometimes when you yarn has a mind of its own, this doesn't work. It curls up and looks bad, it has something to do with the way its plied. It usually works to work in the opposite direction.

I also weave beginning and end in AFTER I am done with al the embellishments.

[VikingKvinna]

Thank you! This is very helpful. The design I want to do is a fairly large, simple shape filled in with color, so it seemed like embroidery would take a long time and a lot of yarn and be kinda overkill, KWIM? I was trying to go vertically, though, so I'll try it horizontally. I bet that will help.

~nick