Texture It With Knots! The Bullion Knot

Now, if you don't want to make puff balls, or if you already used the puff balls and would like to use another kind of embellishment to create texture, use knots!
We will be making different knots, so you will learn to make them and by eaither scattering them all over your project or using them to follow a design of your own invention, go for it! This and the following classes will enable you to use decorative knots from now on.

Let's start with the Embroidery Bullion Knot.
You know Bullions from crochet, the embroidery bullion is pretty similar, but you can add bullions to your project after the fact, by using embroidery bullion knots.

You can add them in a pattern of your own choosing, you can scatter them all over, you can add them horizontally or vertically, and you can curve them like semi-circles.

You can use yarn on yarn, tone on tone, or contrasting colors and a different thread from the yarn used for your purse, bag or garment. For example, you can use Perle embroidery cotton, you can make them with a #10 cotton thread, you can use metallic thread, you can use satiny rayon thread, variegated embroidery thread,etc. The possibilities are almost endless.

This particular knot is also known as a caterpillar stitch or a coil stitch because you can use it as coils in a decorative manner. It all depends on how many times you will wrap the thread or yarn around your needle, if you do it say, 20 times, you will have a longer bullion and you can arch it a bit and turn it into a semi-circle.
Usually, you will wrap 15 times and you will get a straight bullion. If you would like to have an interesting effect with this thread, you can use 3 or 4 contrasting embroidery threads threaded through your blunt or embroidery needle. This stitch can be used a s a powdering, here and there as an accent, or you can mass it together, thus making a very dense textured filling following a pattern of your own invention; you can work it closely together to form a textured outline to other motifs you may want to sew onto a piece or just use it to add interest an a splash of color and a surprise where you would like it.

Before you begin, you have to decide whether you want the bullion to lie straight or if you want it to curve (for it to curve you only need tomake it longer and add mroe wraps to the needle). As with everything new, please, practice with a scrap piece until you are confindent with the stithc and then add it to your project to embellish it!

To work your Bullion proceed as follows, insert the needle into the crocheted fabric where you want it, from back to front, insert the needle again a little bit further, as far as you want theBullion to go, and without pushing the needle through the crocheted fabric all the way through, wrap the thread or yarn around the needle, 10 to 12 times for yarn or thick thread, 15 to 20 times for very fine embroidery thread or fine cotton crochet thread, not to tightly, because it will make it hard to pull the needle, and pull the needle through the wraps. Pull all the way till all the thread has gone through the curls of the wraps and all you have left is the Bullion.
To anchor the stitch, bring the needle to the back at the spot where you started.

Born of the Lineage of David