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Category: Embroidery

TAST Week 8: Chain Stitch

I’m getting a little behind with my TAST samplers because I didn’t start last week’s stitch until Friday. Here it’s Thursday again and I haven’t started this week’s stitch yet. Hmmm.

First I tried some various chain stitch borders and a couple of circles.

TAST Week 8, Embroidered Chain Stitch Sampler

Variations include whipped, laced, back stitched, zig-zag, twisted, double, broad, whipped double, heavy, magic and linked double chain stitches. I used some to couch other threads and added stitches to others because they were a bit boring 😛

Then I decorated a Spoonflower swatch with whipped and detached chain stitch.

TAST Week 8, Embroidered Chain Stitch Sampler on a Spoonflower Fabric Swatch

I’d better get stitching on this week’s sampler!

Some useful links:
TAST on Facebook
Sharron’s TAST FAQ on her website, Pintangle.
Free vintage stitch book downloads.

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Detached Chain Stitch Sampler for TAST, Week 7.

This week’s Take a Stitch on Tuesday sampler is detached chain, or lazy daisy stitch. Since detached chain works so well with flowers, and flowers are one of my favourite motifs, I really had a blast.

Before I started I drew a selection of motifs using a Clover water erasable pen. I’m on my second one already. I use it a LOT.

(Click on the photo to make it bigger)

Embroidered sampler featuring detached chain stitch flowers, tree, geometric motifs, butterflies and borders.

There are many different variations on detached chain stitch but I only used a few because I wanted to concentrate on the motifs themselves, rather than working lines of different stitches.

On the full sampler I used lazy daisy to couch a thread on the top border. On the right in groups of three, threaded chain stitch on the bottom and twisted detached chain on the left. Other stitches include slipped detached chain stitch, berry stitch, picot stitch (long tack chain stitch in groups of four) and long tack chain stitch (also known as long tail or long tail chain).

Embroidered flowers worked in detached chain stitch, stem stitch and french knots

These flowers were inspired by one of the chapter headings in the updated version of Mary Thomas’s Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches. I especially loved how full the leaves are and they make a great corner for borders. In fact, you could repeat them all the way along the border on a large project like a tea cloth or the bottom of a vintage inspired skirt.

Long tack chain stitch flowers with woven and french knot centres.

I worked long tack chain in groups of 5 and wove around the centres for these flowers.

Embroidered Chain Stitch Tree and Carrots

Another favourite idea I came up with was to turn slipped detached chain upside down with the little “leaves” pointing up to make carrots. For my tree I worked the detached chain leaves with a variegated green thread. I think it would look cute with little french knot apples or oranges too. I wonder what stitch would make lemons?

Butterflies worked in detached chain stitch

I think these butterflies look best in a thicker thread like all six strands of embroidery floss or size 5 perle cotton. At least I think that’s size 5. It might be size 3. I’m not sure because I dyed it many years ago and didn’t keep any labels 🙂

Other thoughts I had while working my sampler:

  • I think the suffolk puff/fabric yo-yo motif would look better with  smaller puff.
  • Flowers flowers flowers. I can never get enough of them.
  • I see a garden sampler in my future…

Oh, and I already used the butterfly on this birthday embroidery I did for Mr Knittingand! It’s his birthday today.

Embroidered medallion with black cat looking at a butterfly and a whipped chain stitch border

Some useful links:
TAST on Facebook
Sharron’s TAST FAQ on her website, Pintangle.
Free vintage stitch book downloads.

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TAST Week 6. Chevron Stitch Sampler.

I didn’t think chevron stitch could be used for much other than straight lines and a stacked filling. Boy, was I wrong.

Embroidered sampler of chevron stitch for TAST week 6

The Batsford Encyclopaedia of Embroidery stitches only had four variations of chevron stitch so I had to research a lot online to find inspiration. I’ll add links to the inspiration source or tutorial wherever possible.

Embroidered chevron stitch borders

On the left of the photo above: Threaded chevron stitch. The lacing is worked the same way as threaded herringbone stitch.

Top: Chevron stitch with the cross bars tacked down with a tiny straight stitch

Rows 1 – 4 from the Batsford Encyclopaedia: Chevron stitch, pagoda stitch, half chevron, raised or whipped chevron.

Row 5: Double chevron stitch

Row 6 : Double chevron stitch with the second layer sitting completely on top

Row 7: Shaded chevron stitch stacked closely together

Row 8: Threaded double chevron stitch. Double chevron stitch threaded in the same way as threaded chevron stitch (one layer at a time).

I also tried beaded chevron stitch but my fabric was a bit flimsy and I couldn’t get the beads to sit nicely.

Then I was inspired by some fillings.

Two different ways of stacking embroidered chevron stitch

For the top half I worked the filling Sharon Boggon shows on the TAST stitch page. It looks quite different worked on calico than it does on even weave. I like both.

The bottom half was inspired by Alison M. Dearborn’s chevron stitch sampler on the Take a Stitch on Tuesday facebook group. I worked the chevron stitch in tapestry cotton and the satin stitch filling in 3 strands of embroidery floss. I think this is my favourite part of the sampler. It reminds me of 1970’s Japanese embroidery pattern books.

In square number 3 I worked a few things I wanted to remember. First I worked the double chevron stitch circles. Despite my original thoughts on chevron stitch, I found that it works beautifully on simple curves. Spirals are another matter. I couldn’t get those to work so they were unpicked.

Double chevron stitch circles, stacked diamonds and couching

Next I worked the couched thread (Noro Taiyo knitting yarn), inspired by Majo van der Woude in the facebook group.

And finally a little picture.

An embroidered chevron stitch zebra eating apples.

A little chevron stitch zebra eating apples from a basket under a chevron stitch sun with little “M” birds waiting to peck at the apple cores. In the background is a stacked chevron stitch mountain range and the zebra has chevron grass underfoot.

Some useful links:
TAST on Facebook
Sharron’s TAST FAQ on her website, Pintangle.
Free vintage stitch book downloads.

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TAST Week 5 – Herringbone Stitch

This week’s Take a Stitch on Tuesday sampler does not contain a fish of any sort, which is kind of ironic, considering it’s herringbone stitch.

Embroidered sampler in herringbone stitch with flower and decorative borders

I really struggled with working a few variations of herringbone stitch that I had really wanted to try. You won’t see them in the sampler because I either gave up when I couldn’t get it to look good with the threads I tried, or I’d worked the whole foundation row of herringbone stitch without noticing I was supposed to pass the needle under a thread somewhere strange and I did it the regular way. I’m looking at you laced herringbone stitch and interlaced herringbone stitch :-/

Hmm, I wish I’d found those tutorials before. They’re different to the instructions in my embroidery encyclopaedia and use basic herringbone bases instead of the “don’t forget to pass your needle under 8,000 threads and make your head explode” version I have. OK, it was just one thread but still.

I do like what I ended up with, despite not being able to get my head around the versions I really wanted to try (I’ll be having another go)!

The stitches in my sampler are (from the Batsford Ecyclopaedia of Embroidery Stitches by Anne Butler or made up on the spot by me out of frustration when trying to work the above mentioned stitches):

  • Top: threaded herringbone stitch
  • Right: herringbone stitch
  • Bottom: ribbon couched with herringbone stitch with one leg tied down with a straight stitch
  • Left: ric-rac couched with herringbone stitch
  • From top to bottom: Double back stitch with french knots. Double back stitch is basically herringbone with the tops of the crosses touching. The back looks like two rows of back stitch.
  • Double herringbone stitch with a straight stitch up the centre of each cross.
  • Two rows of herringbone on top of each other with running stitch to close the tops of the crosses and tie down the centre.
  • Two rows of herringbone on top of each other with the centre tacked down with cross stitch
  • Back stitched herringbone stitch
  • Herringbone and spike stitch
  • Tied herringbone stitch
  • Twisted lattice band
  • Threaded herringbone stitch again 🙂
  • Herringbone stitch tied down with zig zag stitch (worked as a row straight stitches tying down the centre of one leg, then back again across the other leg).
  • Two layers of herringbone tied down with running stitch wherever threads crossed
  • Tapestry wool couched with herringbone stitch
  • Raised lace band stitch. The satin stitch foundation was worked over 4 threads of tapestry wool.
  • The leaf shape is raised close herringbone stitch
  • The square is square herringbone stitch and
  • The flower is close herringbone stitch

Things I learnt from this sampler:

  • Trying to work square herringbone stitch at 1:30 am when you have insomnia caused by vertigo will result in a wonky square no matter how many times you rip it out and start again. I wonder if larger squares like mine would benefit from a border of split stitch to define the square before working, like you would with satin stitch.
  • Square herringbone stitch would make a kick-arse check filling and is worth the trouble. I wonder what sort of patterns you could make on gingham with it.
  • Tied herringbone stitch is ugly in very short rows but nice in longer rows. When working the tied portion, always tighten the knots by pulling the thread towards the outer edge of the stitch if you want to create a zig-zag, or towards the centre if you want to force it into a straighter line.
  • Twisted lattice band stitch really stands up from the fabric when worked in thicker threads (in this case perle 5 mercerised cotton laced with 6 strands of embroidery floss).
  • Ric-rac couched with herringbone would be a great base for lots of fancy borders.
  • Leaves worked in raised close herringbone stitch are amazingly three dimensional.
  • I like close herringbone stitch as a filling worked with crewel wool more than cotton floss. Wool fills better but floss is more graphic.
  • Herringbone stitch is really good at being super fancy with lacing, threading, couching and the addition of other stitches.

Stitches I still want to try:

  • Interlaced and laced herringbone stitch using the tutorials linked above
  • Point de reprise stitch
  • Buttonholed herringbone stitch and
  • Two different stitches called fancy herringbone stitch.

See what happens when I don’t work two samplers? I still want to try more stitches…

Some useful links:
TAST on Facebook
Sharron’s TAST FAQ on her website, Pintangle.
Free vintage stitch book downloads.

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Fearless Embroidery and Thrifted Threads

You may have noticed that I’ve been using a lot of different threads in my embroidered samplers, and some of them are quite expensive. One of my favourites is DMC perle cotton, which retails for $6.99 per skein in my local craft shop. Here’s my secret to using threads with such abandon: I almost never buy them new. In fact, unless they’re really special or a very large skein, I don’t pay more than 50c per skein for them.

I buy my threads at charity shops. If you like to embroider kits or use the exact colours in a pattern this probably sounds insane to you, but if you’re like me and make things up as you go or like to use designs with a “do your own thing” style of embroidery then it’s a great way to buy threads and end up with a wide ranging stash that you’re not afraid to use experimentally.

The trick is to go to the charity shops often (we call them op shops here in Australia). Sometimes you’ll find nothing but sometimes you’ll find this:

Embroidery wool, cotton and rayon threads thrifted from the local op shops

I popped into three shops while running errands over three days and found well over $300 worth of threads for $34. That price includes a roughly 2 metre long piece of vintage rayon/cotton fabric in the exact shade of bright light blue that I’ve been looking for to make some cushion covers and the orange tin shown in the picture.

These threads include

  • a whole bag of DMC Medici with at least 5 skeins untouched.
  • A bag of Appleton wool,
  • 3 skeins of Caron watercolors,
  • a bag of DMC soft cotton,
  • 7 full skeins of DMC perle cotton (making the retail price of just those 7 skeins almost $49) and several partial skeins,
  • well over 100 skeins of 6 strand floss in DMC, Anchor, Semco and Peri-Lusta brands (all good quality threads) and
  • at least 3 skeins of hand painted Medici,
  • a huge skein of purple hand painted wool and
  • four different skeins of hand painted embroidery thread with mohair.

Score!

Excuse me a moment, I think I feel a need to embroider something. 🙂

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PS: If you are the kind of embroiderer that prefers to use kits and the exact threads mentioned in a pattern and you discard your leftovers, please donate them to your local charity shop!