Baa, Baa French Knot Sheep

I have hated french knots since the first time I ever tried to stitch them, and have always really struggled to stitch them properly. Usually I substitute them for either beads or some sort of backstitch. I thought it was about time to finally get to grips with the pesky things, and cross off another thing from my 50 Projects list!

I found the pattern for this in a recent issue of Crossstitcher magazine and thought it was very cute, and a perfect small project to test out my french knots. It is stitched on linen and as well as french knots uses satin stitch, back stitch and cross stitch. As well as being my first time at using the knots, this project was also the first time I had used cross stitch on linen. Can't say I found using the linen easy for cross stitch though, will stick to aida in the future I think!! I freehand drew the pattern onto the fabric and got stitching!

So after avoiding starting the french knots and stitching everything else on the hoop that I could!! I watched loads of different youtube tutorials, read loads of tutorials, yet still the french knots evaded me. In the end I just ended up getting quite frustrated with them and tried wrapping the thread around the needle in a variety of different ways to see which one worked best for me. After eventually finding my "french knot groove" they got easier and easier to stitch and started to appear really quickly. They are stitched in 2 strands of cream thread and 1 strand of brown thread to make it a bit more multicoloured. I love how the sheep turned out so fluffy with all the french knots.

I think there are over 200 french knots in this project!! So I don't think I will be worried about doing them in the future :D

Vicki