![an embroidered regency reticule lies on a piece of pink silk](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_21511-923x1024.jpg)
A few weeks ago, rummaging in my fabric stash, I found a piece of soft peach silk dupioni fabric. Unfolding it, I saw that at some point I’d begun embroidering it with wild dog roses. It took a bit of head-scratching, but eventually I worked out I’d started this piece back in High School. That’s quite a while ago now – so why on earth had I abandoned it? It was such pretty fabric, and the embroidery looked like it was really going somewhere. I decided that i would finish the piece, and it would become an ribbon embroidered regency reticule! What a simple weekend project that would be!
…. Right?
![partly finished ribbon embroidery](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1778-659x1024.jpg)
Going back to my stash, I pulled out an embroidery frame, my box of silk ribbons, and another box of silk threads –
Oh BOY. It was quickly VERY clear why I’d abandoned the project the first time round. I tend to use dupioni for ribbon embroidery as I find that silk ribbons pass very cleanly through the dupioni fabric – far more easily than they do through taffeta. But this particular soft-and-supple-seeming dupioni was so tought and tightly woven that I could hardly get a needle through it. To drag a ribbon through as well, I had to pull the needle through the fabric with a pair of pliers.
![pliers drag a needle through a piece of embroidered silk](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1765-768x1024.jpg)
The mystery now wasn’t why I’d abandoned the project the first time round – the mystery was why I hadn’t burned it in a fire and salted the earth afterwards.
I abandoned my first plan – to unpick the rather-badly-laid-out stems and start the composition over. Instead, I forged ahead. Leaf by little rose leaf, I dragged the thin ribbon through that horrible silk. The resulting tension issues in the ribbons AND the fabric mean that my little rose bush is not the healthiest-looking rose bush in embroidered history – in fact I’m pretty sure it’s got sawfly. But I pressed on, swearing ineffectually, until there was a nasty snap, and only the front half of the needle came through.
Yep. My, soft and supple silk had actually broken a tapestry needle in half.
![a snapped needle lies next to a green silk ribbon](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1766-834x1024.jpg)
Dropping any plans for more leaves, I tied off and threaded up the smallest needle I could get away with and started embroidering rose thorns instead. Lots of rose thorns. This was NOT a FRIENDLY rose bush.
![yellow roses embroidered on peach silk with pink silk ribbons](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1767-847x1024.jpg)
Once I’d wrestled the embroidery into submission, turning it into something I could show off was practically a walk in the park. I needed a regency reticule, so I made that.
I figured out some dimensions, cut out a template, marked it up, cut it out, and stitched it up.
![a paper template sits over a piece of silk embroidery](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1784-923x1024.jpg)
A hand-stitched drawstring channel was next.
![a drawstring channel being backstitiched into pink silk](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_18351-768x1024.jpg)
Then a pair of green ribbon drawstrings to match the rose leaves, and lastly, a hank of green silk thread became a set of little silk tassels for the corners.
![A hank of silk thread is wound around a folded piece of card to make a tassel](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_17851-768x1024.jpg)
And voila – a ribbon embroidered regency reticule!
![an regency reticule embroidered with yellow silk roses](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1849-768x1024.jpg)
The embroidery might not be perfectly accurate to the period, but it is very pretty and photogenic, and I never need to sew this AWFUL silk again. So there.
![close-up of silk ribbon embroidered roses](https://www.sewwhathappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_1848-scaled.jpg)
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