The Dove's Eye is made with a series of Buttonhole stitches generally done at the same time as you weave or wrap the bars of a design. In these instructions it is assumed that the fabric threads have been cut and removed and you are going to start wrapping or weaving the bars.
The Buttonhole stitch is used to make the Dove's Eye as follows:
Stop the bar wraps as shown after the third wrap, see a
the working thread goes under the bar then over to the last bar wrapped and the Buttonhole stitch is formed as shown,
the working thread wraps under, then over that bar and crosses over the thread at a,
and then another stitch is formed on the next bar.
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Buttonhole Stitch
Each line in this chart represents a fabric thread.
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The fabric in this chart conceals the back of the Buttonhole loop at 2-3, that hidden part is like the Buttonhole stitch in the Dove's Eye.
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A Finer Point
The grid is made of bars and spaces. Each space is surrounded by four bars. In this instance three bars of the space have been wrapped on the diagonal.
The last stitch wraps around the first half stitch depicted by the red a in the diagram. The wrap around that stitch is in a spiral so that no wraps overlap. To do that wrap go under the half stitch, over it and under it again moving up the thread towards the partially wrapped bar.
Then go over or under the unwrapped part of the bar and start wrapping again to the next intersection of the grid. You will have to determine whether to go over or under the bar depending on your orientation in the diagonal row.
Generally I need to do an equal number of wraps on either side of the Buttonhole on these partially wrapped bars, what that means is that the Buttohole stitch or any portions of it does not count as a wrap. The Buttonhole stitch does not take any space on the bar at all. So that means if I was doing eight wraps around each bar I would have to do eight wraps around this bar too, four before the Buttonhole stitch and four after it.
And don't worry about the orientation of these stitches as you work up and down the bars diagonally some of the Dove's Eyes will look a little different because they started in a different spot, it will be an intriguing puzzle for the 'stitch police' to figure out! They will be wondering how you got such nice balanced Dove's Eyes. ©2004, Linda Fontenot, www.AmericanFolkArts.com
