I'm Lisa Pownall. Welcome to my fourth video. This one is on bullion flowers and animals.
And I'm going to show you how you can turn this wonderful stitch into an amazing array
of flowers and animals.
Now the most important thing you have to remember when doing bullion or grub stitch is to use
the right needle. And that is a straw needle.
Now a straw needle is the same width from the top to the bottom.
So all other needles taper at the eye. A straw needle is the same width from the head to
the point.
And when you're wrapping the thread around the needle, it doesn't get stuck.
Now you also need to remember to know the right size needle.
Now the best way to judge it is the width of the needle should equal the width of the
thread.
So I'll just show you an example of that.
Now here we have a size three straw needle, which is quite big.
And it's the same width as the thread.
Now here we have a finer needle.
And I'd use one strand with that.
So just lay the thread and the needle side by side.
And that will determine which size needle to use.
Now for the purpose of the demonstration, I'm going to use four strands of Madeira silk
and a size three straw needle.
And the first stitch I'm going to show you is a bullion bud.
Now I'll show you an example first.
Start on the sampler here, the two bullions together and then the green stem.
And here we have two lying the other way.
Just there.
Now I'll show you how to do that.
Bring the thread up at point A.
Now take a stitch back to the thread.
Now the size stitch you take will determine the length of the bullion that you want.
The point of the needle and the thread should be side by side when you start to wrap the
thread around the needle.
So pull that needle a little bit the way through so we begin to wrap.
Now I place my second finger behind that needle to hold the wraps on the needle firm.
And we're going to wrap one, two, three, four, five, six.
Now the wraps on the needle should equal the length stitch you've taken.
If you want that bullion to sit straight, the wraps on the needle should equal the length
stitch you've taken.
If you want it to curve, they should be longer.
So I'm going to have seven wraps there.
Place your thumb over the wraps and hold it tight as you pull the needle through.
Now pull as hard as you can until you can't pull it anymore.
This will now pull towards you.
I'll just let it go so you can see what it looks like.
But before I pull it again, I must hold on to those bullion wraps.
So hold on to it and pull back down towards you.
Now I can end that off by going down at the end there.
And that's just one bullion by itself.
Now if I want to do a bullion bud, I'll do it slightly differently.
So come up at point A, take a stitch to the needle, to the thread, and wrap the thread
around the needle.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, hold on to it, pull it through.
Hold on to it, pull it back.
Now don't end this one off.
What I'm going to do is turn the fabric around so you've still got it like that.
And I'm going to take a stitch in at the same hole that end and back out at the same hole
that end.
So again, the point of the needle and the thread are together.
Bring my finger up behind there again and wrap.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, same number of wraps.
Hold on to it, very important.
Never pull the needle through without holding on to it.
Keep hold of it and pull it back towards yourself again.
And there you have a lovely little bullion bud.
End that second one off by going in at the end there.
Now you can turn that into a bud by putting a fly stitch around it and a stem.
Or we can put a darker color center inside of that and have a three bullion bud rose.
And I'll show you how to do that.
And I'll come up in green so you can see the contrast.
Now just open that up a little bit and come up inside as close to the edge as you can
go.
Take a stitch down at the other end but inside still and back to the thread.
Now we're going to do less wraps this time because there were seven on the outside.
We'll only do five.
One, two, three, four, five.
Hold on to it and pull through.
Now because I've used the wrong size needle there, it was a little bit hard to pull it
through.
Again, holding on to it as you pull it down and then anchor it inside of that bullion.
And there you have the three together.
Now I always do the middle one last.
So the two outside ones and the middle one.
You get a much nicer shape.
And I'll show you a sample of that here and also around the collar of the dress but in
one shade.
And that's a much dainter one in one strand of the rayon thread.
So there's seven wraps on the two outside ones and five in the middle.
Same rule even when you're only using one strand.
Now the next thing I'm going to show you is how to make that into a large bullion rose.
And again, I'll come up in a different color so it's much more noticeable.
And a lot of people have trouble turning these into large roses.
Come up halfway above your centers, bringing the needle in underneath.
So it's coming in from underneath there.
Pull it all the way through.
Now wherever you want this one to end is where you take the needle in next.
I want it to end there so I'm going to take a stitch from there back to the thread.
Now if I started with seven, this will have nine wraps.
Hold onto it.
Pull it all the way through.
Again holding onto it as you pull it down.
Anchor that down at the end of that one.
Now where do I take the needle in next?
I come up halfway above the one I've just finished.
So I need to turn my fabric a little bit.
And coming up halfway above and again in from underneath.
Now where do I take the next stitch?
Wherever I want this one to end.
So about half the size of a bullion.
So about round to there.
Take the next stitch and back to the thread.
Because the point of the needle and the thread must be in the same place to wrap.
This will have 11 wraps.
Hold onto it and pull through.
I've got my tail caught here.
So even when this happens, keep hold of your bullion.
Otherwise you'll end up in a mess.
And keep pulling until that lies flat.
And sits flat there.
Take the needle in at the end of that one.
Now obviously we'd never do a rose in these colors.
Come up halfway above the one you've just finished.
Now wherever I want this one to end.
So each time I'm coming around about half a centimeter.
I mean obviously it would be less if it was a smaller one.
But you judge it by the size of the one you've just done.
Now this one will have 13 wraps.
Hold onto it and pull.
Now you can see how that's curling around that rose.
End that one off.
Now we're getting short of thread.
So I'll just end that one off.
Turn it to the back of the work.
End off.
And always remember to cut your thread short before you start again.
So come up halfway above the one I've just finished.
And this one is almost back to the beginning.
And this will have 15 wraps.
Hold onto it.
Now when you've got this many wraps on the needle, make sure you're holding onto the
top half of the wrap.
So none are showing at the top of your finger there.
Pull it through.
And again, hold onto it as you pull it round.
End that one off.
As you can see I'm turning it around as I go.
Come up halfway above the one you've just finished.
And this one will come in overlapping that very first one you did.
Now once I've got to 15 wraps, I stay at 15 wraps all the time.
And if you just remember to use the straw needle and the right size straw needle, you'll never
have any trouble.
End that one off.
Now you could leave that like so or I could add to that and turn it into an even bigger
rose just remembering to come up halfway above the one you've just finished each time.
And I'll just run you through that on the sampler here.
So here we have the first two, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, seventh,
eighth, and I'm coming in in the eighth in a slightly paler shade again.
Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen bullions to make that large rose there.
Always tuck it in underneath the other buds and you'll get that lovely raised look.
Now I'll show you how to do a bullion daisy.
Now when you're doing the bullion daisy, I've got on the velvet coat hanger here in the
pink and in the rayon thread I've got a chain stitch around each of the bullions so it gives
it that sheen that you can see.
Now I've got it on my sampler here.
Now when you're doing the bullion daisy, draw a circle on your fabric with your fabric marking
pen and mark across and then put your four bullions in a cross shape.
And then in between each of those, do another four.
So you've got eight petals for your daisy.
Now just to give it a little bit of a highlight, you can do a chain stitch around each of those
and I'll show you how to do that.
And I'm doing it in a contrasting color.
Maybe I'll do it in the same color.
This is so you can see it.
Come up in the center and in at the same place there, take a stitch out to the top of the
bullion, thread around underneath the needle and pull.
So that chain stitch encircles that bullion bud.
So catch this at the end and come back up in the center again.
Second one.
So coming in at the same place there, back out to there, thread around underneath and
pull and anchor it down at the end.
Now obviously you don't need to do the chain stitch around that.
It just depends on the look you want.
And that makes a fantastic bullion daisy.
Now the next thing I'm going to show you is a bullion loop.
And I'll start with a small one first.
I've got a sample of the bullion loop flowers that I've got on the cream jumper.
And you can see the bullion loops forming large flowers on the jumper here.
And I've also got it, I use it for my butterflies and bows and smaller flowers.
And I'll just give you an example of that.
So you use the bullion loop for the wings of the butterfly, the ears of the teddy bear
and here we have a sample of the flowers.
And here's a small bullion loop flower, a larger one that's using four strands of silk
and the purple one is using two strands.
So you get the different size by using different amounts of thread.
So I'll just show you how to do one of those.
Now I'm using four strands of thread and the wraps around the needle would be the same
whether I was using four, two or one.
Now take a stitch to the thread and it's just a token stitch, a tiny little stitch back
to the thread.
So the point of the needle and the thread are together and I'm going to wrap the thread
around the needle 18 times.
Now the main thing to remember is when you go to pull that through that you're holding
on to the top half of the wraps.
So there's none peeking out above my thumb there.
Pull it through and again you have to hold on to it as you pull it.
I'll let go so you can see what it looks like.
Now that will pull back down on itself, back down to there forming a loop.
So hold on to it and keep pulling it till it's pulled back down to the beginning like
so.
Now take the needle in at the point of the first stitch.
So you make a complete circle like so and there you have your first bullion loop.
Now when you come back up again make sure you don't come up in the same hole or you'll
pull that last stitch out and I'll show you it again.
Take a tiny little stitch back to the thread and wrap 18 times.
Hold on to it and pull it through.
Now again holding on to it as you pull it back down on itself and when you end it off
go down in the first stitch and there you have a second bullion loop.
Now I can put a third one on this to make a three petal flower and I'll show you this.
So here we have the first one, second, third and then when you've got the three there in
a darker shade put a French knot for the center and you can make that into a flower.
You can put a chain stitch leaf or a bullion loop again.
Now if you want to turn that into the large bullion loop don't put the French knot in
the center and in a lighter color work four stitches around the middle three.
So in the dark pink here we have the three bullion loops and then behind those I've put
the other four bullion loops around like that.
So we start with three and then in the medium color four and you can leave that at that
size or turn it into an even larger flower.
In another lighter shade and you put in six bullion loops underneath those first.
Now you can add leaves in underneath this.
When you are doing the loops behind each other I'll just show you how to do that.
Just hold them out of the way with your thumb and don't put them directly behind another
loop.
Sort of position it so it's going half way between two loops.
Moving the thread up and I'm putting in a green here.
Now hold them out of the way and again take a little token stitch.
So I'm in quite close to the rest of those loops and I'll have increased it by two wraps
to twenty.
This is so the leaves come out a little bit further than the petals.
But same manner hold on to it as you pull it back down and anchor it off.
Now you'd probably put in seven or eight of the green petals to make your flower.
Now I've got it in the purple here and that's in two strands.
So it's the same method.
You start with your three in the center, four around the middle and then six around the
outside.
Now the next thing I'm going to show you is a bullion boat.
And I'll just show you a sample of that.
And here we have the three little sailing boats.
And the base of the boats is in bullion stitch.
Around the outside of that is straight stitch and the sails is straight stitch and the mast
is couched.
And I'll just show you that.
So on my sample here I've put in the base of the boat.
Now that's twelve wraps.
The next one is fourteen wraps.
So about two millimeters bigger either end of that first one I make that second stitch
and that'll be fourteen wraps.
Put onto it as you pull it through and again it pulls back to the other end.
End it off.
And the third one, again two millimeters bigger either end and this will have sixteen wraps.
So twelve, fourteen, sixteen.
Hold onto it as you go to pull it through.
And anchor that off.
Now to square it all off come up and take a straight stitch around the outline of that
boat.
So one there.
One across the top.
One across the bottom.
And another one up this side here.
And there you have the base of your boat.
And now the mast.
And I've capped the mast so in four strands of the red in the center of the boat come
up in the middle and take a long straight stitch up to the top.
And you want two of those.
And that's in four strands.
And in two strands catch that down.
So coming up on the left and going down on the right.
Catch your mast down.
Then in your white thread we're going to do the mast.
Come up at the top of the mast and take a straight stitch down running alongside the
mast.
We're going to make a triangle.
And one across the bottom.
And then I'm going to take straight stitches to fill that all in.
Very close to each other so it's like a satin stitch.
And keep going until you've filled that mast in and you end up with the little boat like
this.
So you make a sail on the other side, slightly smaller with a small one at the top but working
it in the same method.
Do a triangle shape and then fill it in with your satin stitch.
Now the next thing I'm going to show you is a bullion bow.
Now the bullion bow you do with your bullion loop and I'll just show it to you here.
Here we have the bow here in four strands of the silk and here two strands of the silk.
Now you start out and you do two bullion loops with a little hole in the center.
Put a French knot in the center and then you do your tail.
Now the bullion loops have 18 wraps each and the French knot has two wraps and I'll just
show you how to do the tail.
Finish it off on that bow there.
So coming up in from underneath the knot and take a long stitch out wherever you want your
tail to go and back to the thread and we're going to wrap it 14 times.
Now I'm just going to check that because I want that to match that so that looks shorter
than that.
We're going to add another four wraps so we've got 18 there.
Hold on to it and pull it back down to where you started and pull it quite tight so it
gets sort of skinny at the end and then take it back through to end it off.
And there you have your bullion bow.
So 18 wraps for each loop, two wrapped French knot and then 18 wraps for the tail.
Now I'm going to show you how to do a butterfly and again this is using the bullion loop stitch.
In the same manner that we did the bow, do your first bullion loop and then your second.
Now these two have 18 wraps each.
That's the large wings.
The smaller rings have 12 wraps and do another two directly beneath those larger ones.
Now because we want to put bullion wraps inside of that we have to catch these loops down.
We don't want them raised off the fabric.
So if I've used four strands which I have here I'm going to catch it down using one
strand and I'll just show you how to do that.
So you've done all your loops and just flatten them down onto the fabric and coming up on
the outside edge take a stitch down over the top and that will catch that loop down and
hold it firm to the fabric.
So catch each of the four down, coming up on the outside, catching it down, coming up
on the outside, catching it down.
So we have our large wings and the small wings.
Next step is the body and that sits across the top and that's 10 wraps.
So take a stitch across the top from the top to the bottom there and 10 wraps.
Next stitch is to fill inside of those wings and I'll just show you how to do that.
Come up inside the large wing as close to the edge as you can get and take a stitch
from the body back to the thread and this will have five wraps.
Hold onto it and pull it back down.
And that will sit nicely inside of that wing.
Now you can use the rayon, the decor thread for this because it's really shiny and it
gives it a lovely highlight.
Now come up inside of the smaller wing and we're going to do a French knot inside of
that.
So thread in the left, needle in the right, wrap twice and go down inside and put that
French knot inside of that loop.
So you do a five wrap bullion stitch inside the large wings and a two wrap French knot
inside the smaller wings.
The next thing we have to do is the antennas which is your pistol stitch and I'll show
you how to do that.
I've got it in a contrasting color here so you can see it.
Come up at the base of the body, thread in the left hand, needle in the right and wrap
the thread around the needle twice and just take a short stitch out, pull it tight and
pull through.
You have one antenna, come up for the second one, two wraps around the needle and take
a straight stitch out, tighten it on the needle and pull through.
Obviously you'd have your antenna in the same color as the body which is the lemon.
Now the smaller butterfly here is exactly the same as the large one but I've used three
strands of thread there of cotton and I've used four strands of silk here.
So same number of wraps but just a different thickness of thread and I'll show you an
example of the butterflies on the towel here and these make great gifts.
So the larger butterflies are in the six strands of cotton and the smaller butterflies are
in three strands and I've put them on a piece of satin ribbon to decorate the towel.
The next bullion animal I'm going to show you is a fish and these make great little
presents on towels or singlets for newborn babies and it doesn't matter what sex the
child is because you can make them any color combination.
And here we have a sample of them on the sampler here and I'll show you how to do one of those.
Now we do the first two nine wraps each but you don't want them joining at the beginning
so I'll just show you how you do that.
Now if I want my fish to point this way I do it in this direction first.
Take a stitch to the thread and nine.
Hold on to it and pull through.
Now pull it down.
Now what I'm going to do is turn it around.
Now don't go in at the same hole.
About two millimeters away take a stitch there but go in the same hole at the other side
and that's where the tail will be, this is where the mouth will be.
And again nine wraps.
Hold on to it and pull through and that will pull back there.
Now anchor that off at the end of that stitch.
And what you have is your two wraps but with a slight opening here.
Now just inside of that leaving the gap there come up inside and we're going to do a seven
wrap rows inside of it.
So coming in at the end there and I've turned it around to face back away from me again
and wrap seven.
And pull it back and that will fill the inside of the fish.
And I do those in the same color.
And there you have the body of the fish.
When you've done that do a two chain stitch tail for your tail in a contrast color, a
French knot eye inside there and then in another color come up inside of the tail and put a
straight stitch.
And I'll just show you how to do that.
So coming up inside of here and take a straight stitch down inside of that chain stitch like
so.
Come up in the other tail and take a straight stitch down there.
And there you have your color in your tail.
Now for his little air bubbles I pop one inside of his mouth and this is just a two wrap French
knot.
And again I've got sticky fingers.
And then make the bubbles coming up get smaller so the next one would only be one wrap.
And there you have your little bubbles coming out of his mouth.
Now I'll show you a sample of that fish on the tail.
And what I did was I got some pale blue satin ribbon for a contrast and then put groups
of the fish along the ribbon and I made them all different colors so I just switched all
the colors around.
Now the seaweed is better stitched.
So remembering the bodies have nine wraps for the two outside ones, seven for the middle,
one wrap French knot for the eye, chain stitch for the tail and straight stitch inside of
the tail.
And as you can see it makes a great gift on a tail.
Now the next thing I'm going to show you is a penguin.
And I'll just show you him.
And we've got the little penguin here.
That one is in four strands of Madeira silk and this one is in three strands of cotton.
So same number of wraps but different thickness of thread.
Now when you do the penguin, do two bullions for the head, nine wraps each.
And then the body is two lots of fourteen wraps.
And they will curve out so you're going to put the white wraps inside of that and they
will have twelve wraps each.
Now if these are loose, what you need to do is in one strand of black, catch those down
so they won't move later on.
Then his flippers are chain stitch so one either side of his body and two down the bottom
for his feet.
And then his eye and his beak are in a bright yellow orange and I'll just show you how to
do that.
Now if I've used four strands of thread for the body of the penguin, I'll only use two
for the beak and the eye.
Come up inside of the head but catch part of the bullion because you don't want the
eye to slip down in the middle and you do a two wrap, one, two, French knot.
And again, catch it on part of the bullion wrap.
Pull it through.
Now his beak is two straight stitches in a V shape.
So come up and slightly up from that to make a V and then back over to there and then back
down to there.
And there you have his little beak and eye.
Now remembering they were two strands and the body was four.
Now I'll show you how to do a rabbit.
Before I do that I'll show you a sample of the penguins on a t-shirt.
And here we have it just on a little white t-shirt, just finishes it off.
And I've just done them in groups of three and two.
These also look great on baby singlets.
Now I'll show you how to do a rabbit.
Now again, the rabbit, the head's slightly bigger than on the penguin.
So we start out with two lots of nine wrap bullion and then inside of that put seven
wraps.
Then the E is chain stitch.
When you've done that, put a straight stitch inside the chain stitch to fill it in like
you did on the fish tail.
And then the body is two lots of 20 wraps and then inside of that two lots of 18 wraps
and then inside of that one lot of 16 wraps.
So you have a nice fat round body.
And to finish him off we do a pom pom tail and I'll show you how to do that.
Four strands of thread.
Now starting on the right side, come in at the bottom of that 16 wrap and take the thread
through to the back.
And just leave about an inch of thread hanging.
Turn it over to the back and you're going to take a couple of little stitches to catch
that.
So one, two.
And then we're going to go back through to the front.
So come up in the same place again on the front.
Now what you have to be careful is that you don't catch a knot on the back and it won't
pull through easily.
Pull it all the way through.
Then holding on to those two, go back in again.
And again you've got to be careful you don't catch any knots at the back.
Holding on to it, make a loop like so.
Now hold that firm and go back to the back again and catch that again like you did the
first time.
So one, two.
And then we're going to go back through to the front again.
Going to make a second loop and back through to the back.
Now it gets quite thick here so just have a look over to the back of your work and try
not to go through any knots.
And it will pull through a little bit easier.
So what you've ended up with is one, two, three, four, five on the front.
So you're going to just do another two on the back again and go back through to the
front for the last time.
So we've ended up with a clump of thread there and now all I'm going to do is trim that right
back and fluff that out and there we have a little pom-pom tail.
And I'll just show you the rabbit, a smaller version of the rabbit.
Here we have it here.
Again, the same number of stitches but less amount of thread.
And I also have it on the hot water bottle cover here.
And I've got a family of rabbits.
So here we have the four rabbits in the wool this time.
Now I used a size one straw needle to do it in the wool because it's a lot thicker than
the thread.
Now the next thing I'm going to show you is a snail.
And I'll just show a little sample of the snail here.
This one has got a stem stitch rose for its shell and then a bullion rose for its body.
And I'll show you how to do that.
This is the shell first.
Come up and do a two-wrap French knot for the center.
And then working around that in stem stitch.
So just keep working around until you get the size shell that you want.
Now you don't have to do a stem stitch shell.
You can put a bullion rose shell on it.
It just depends on the look that you want.
So keep working around until you've got the size shell you want.
Finish it off.
And then I'll show you how to do the body.
Now coming up away from the shell over here, and you just imagine that you want him to
sort of sit like that.
So wherever you want his head to be is where you take the stitch in next.
And then 14 wraps.
Hold onto it and pull through.
And that will curve up around the top there.
Anchor it off.
And then in two strands do pistol stitch and tenor from the top there so that you end up
with one of your snails like this.
And now I'll show you how to do a teddy bear.
And he's the most detailed one we have.
Now his head, start out with two lots of nine wraps and then seven wraps in the middle.
Then the ears are 12 wrap bullion loops.
And when you finish them in one strand, catch those ears down so that they don't flop up.
Then the body is two lots of 14 in the brown.
And then inside of that, two lots of 12 in the cream.
And then one wrap French knots inside the bullion loop ears.
And the legs are two lots of eight wraps on each leg and then a five wrap for the feet.
And then the arms are two lots of seven wraps on either side.
And then in black you do a French knot eyes and nose.
And this is a smaller one here.
Again, he's in two strands of silk and the other one was in four strands.
And I'll just show you a sample of the teddy bears on a jumper.
And here I've put them on a navy jumper.
And I've put a bow around their neck.
And I'll show you how to put that bow on, on the teddy bear on the sampler.
So in the pink.
So when you've completed your bear, come up where his head joins his body and take a chain
stitch out to the side.
Anchor that off and come back to the center again.
And take a second chain stitch and I'll have to turn this around to do that and show it
to you again.
Second chain stitch out to the other side.
Anchor it off.
Come back up in the middle again.
Do a French knot for the knot of the bow.
And then just coming down from underneath, across his body, a straight stitch tail.
So one, two.
So I'll just do that first one again, it didn't stand out too well.
And there we have the bow around the neck of the teddy bear.
So it's just a chain stitch either side, French knot in the middle and two little straight
stitches.
I hope you enjoyed all the animals and flowers that we've done today.
And I'll just go into a little bit on the thread.
I use the decorer which is the rayon thread because it's got a great sheen to it.
Now this is fabulous for the fish and the butterflies.
And the one that I did on the sampler was all in the silk and some of them were in the
cotton.
Now don't forget when you're doing all those animals and flowers that it doesn't matter,
the number of wraps stays the same whether you're doing six strands, four strands, two
strands or one strand.
So the recipe for each of those is the same regardless of the amount of thread you're
using.
I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you on my next one.