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Category: Embroidery

Cretan Stitch Samplers and Post Apocalyptic Fish, TAST Week 4

This week’s “Take a Stitch on Tuesday” embroider-along stitch was cretan stitch, which I honestly thought was going to be a bit dull after working feather stitch because they look so similar. I was wrong. I loved it.

I seem to have developed a habit of working a sampler with the basic stitch in whatever way takes my fancy at the moment, then working another with all the variations I like from my embroidery encyclopaedia so I thought, “What the heck”, and have decided to do that with all the stitches from now on. Unless I don’t feel like it at the time 🙂

Sampler number one is an homage to stitch samplers of the late 1960’s/early 70’s. I call it “Post Apocalyptic Fish”. I used everything from for strands of embroidery floss (some with 2 strands of 2 different colours), to tapestry wool and cotton, number 3 mercerised cotton and metallic braids and threads. I laced the basic cretan stitch, whipped it and even tied some knots up the side of the brown closed cretan stitch wedge. The background is unbleached calico painted with acrylic paint & textile medium.

Sampler with variations on cretan stitch embroidery.

I had planned to stitch the whole thing but I’d tried all the threads and variations I wanted by the time I’d embroidered the left hand side so I added some fish and a shell button shisha stitched sun to complete it. I guess I hadn’t worked the fish motif completely out of my system yet ðŸ™‚

I used a Clover chacopel pencil to draw the design and it worked really well. I was disappointed when it dried after I washed off the marks though, as an area that I rubbed a bit too hard on has fluffed up through the paint. I thought about painting it with some straight textile medium to flatten it down again but I don’t want to risk making it worse.

For my second sampler I block printed a little tree and ruled a LOT of lines with a water erasable pen.

Variations on cretan stitch embroidery with a woodblock printed tree

The stitches are:

The border: Basic cretan stitch in different widths. Some with the needle coming out straight along the centre line and some with a zig-zag. For the right hand side and the bottom I used a little blanket stitch wherever there was something in the way

From left to right:

  • Looped cretan stitch
  • Oriental stitch 5mm wide in green and 1cm wide in variegated orange
  • 2 layers of cretan stitch on top of each other, offset to form diamonds
  • Scotch cretan stitch
  • Crossed cretan stitch
  • Raised cretan stitch
  • Knotted cretan stitch
  • Half cretan stitch
  • 2 rows of slipped cretan stitch with different needle placements (orange then brown)
  • 2 versions of honeycomb arrangements. The green one has overlapping spokes and the orange one has the spokes butted up against each other.

Finally, the tree has closed cretan stitch leaves and the box underneath is cretan open filling stitch.

Phew, that was a lot of stitching.

Thoughts from this week:

  • My favourite variations are probably the basic cretan stitch, scotch cretan and the honeycomb and diamond placements.
  • I’ll definitely be combining block printing and embroidery more often.
  • I’ll be much more careful when removing lines so I don’t damage my background.

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

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Beaded Feather Stitch, TAST Week 3 Part 2

I decided that I couldn’t leave my feather stitch sampler looking unfinished so I added beads after all 🙂

Embroidered feather stitch sampler with seaweed and beading

(Click the photo for a larger view).

I decided to use them to pick out the coral, the “gravel” at the bottom and some bubbles (or as my daughter called them, fish eggs).

After adding the beads, they looked a little like an afterthought, so I added some french knots to both side borders to echo the shape of the beads with stitching. I think this makes them look more like a frame because they’re now slightly different to the other lime green seaweed and a little darker. Since that’s what I wanted, I’m happy.

I also had a go at learning some other feather stitch variations and some experimenty bits.

Embroidered feather sttch sampler with lines of different types of feather stitch and feather stitch shading

From the top (from the Batsford Encyclopaedia of Embroidery Stitches by Anne Butler unless otherwise stated):

  1. thorn stitch
  2. Spanish knotted feather stitch (from Mary Thomas’s Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches. It’s in the Batsford book but the instructions aren’t very clear)
  3. knotted feather stitch
  4. maidenhair stitch
  5. inverted feather stitch
  6. chained feather stitch
  7. floral feather stitch
  8. On the left – whipped triple feather stitch worked in vintage knitting rayon with a firm twist. I found the instructions for whipping it in this style in “Dorset Feather Stitchery” by Olivia Pass.
  9. right: whipped feather stitch (called laced feather stitch in the Batsford book but the technique is what many embroiderers know as whipped).
  10. bottom: single feather stitch

I also tried stitching on an applique because I’d read about it in Dorset Feather Stitchery and wanted to try it.

My favourite “new” thing is shaded double and triple feather stitch bands, which I read about in the Mary Thomas dictionary. It’s really difficult to make them neat on plain calico but I kind of like the messiness. Plus if I want them to be perfectly neat I could always rule lots of little diamonds first.

Orange and green shaded bands worked in double and triple feather stitch.

I’m having a blast learning lots of new stitches. I’ve mostly used just the basics before (stem stitch, blanket, backstitch, running stitch and French knots, with a little pekinese stitch and some shisha mirrors), and have only just ventured into using anything but 6 strand embroidery floss, so everything is shiny and new.

I have two ideas for next week’s stitch. No doubt I probably won’t be able to decide again and end up doing both 😛

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Feather Stitch Embroidery Sampler for TAST, Week 3.

Presenting my finished (I think), feather stitch sampler for week three of the Take a Stitch on Tuesday stitch-along. I expected to it would take a lot longer to finish but I didn’t realise feather stitch seaweed was so addictive 🙂

Embroidered stem stitch fish in a feather stitch seaweed garden.

It was my intention to create a “negative space” fish in amongst the feather stitch seaweed and I don’t think it worked in that respect. I do like it though, which is why I stopped before the negative space experiment was successful.

I learnt two important things about stitching the background rather than the subject.

1: In order for it to work, the background stitching needs to be really dense. More like this section on the top of the tail.

Feather stitch seaweed around a fish's tail

It would probably work much better with a denser stitch like satin or stem stitch filling, although if I worked it with those the sample would be much smaller! Hmm, maybe I should add some beads to it.

and 2: Filling in the missing bits of stitches you can’t complete in the “proper” way is really important to stop the stitching looking skimpy. I added a few straight stitches in the image below to visually finish a section of maidenhair stitch.

Example of partial stitches when filling in a background. Take a stitch on Tuesday Week 3, feather stitch

I guess there’s a third thing I learnt too. I love working feather stitch. It’s very rhythmic and soothing.

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

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Goodbye Buttonhole Stitch, Hello Feather Stitch. TAST Week 3

I decided to embroider one last little thing with buttonhole stitch before getting stuck into this week’s feather stitch sampler. Introducing the first of what will probably become a new obsession, an embroidered brooch.

Tiny fabric brooch with flowers worked in buttonhole stitch

The flowers and leaves measure just 2 inches or 5cm across and are worked in buttonhole stitch, or close blanket stitch (whatever you prefer to call it) with two strands from 6 strand embroidery cottons in variegated orange and green.

It has a plain unbleached calico back with some fleece batting in between, all held together with the satin stitch edging. I sewed a brooch pin on the back but you could sew the finished patches to anything if you want them to be permanent.

Whilst I used a vintage transfer for the flowers, the project was inspired by “Embroidery Emblem”, a Japanese embroidery book that I bought in Sydney a few years ago.

Embroidery Emblem, Japanese Embroidery Book

I love the idea of creating little embroidered fragments and using them as objects in their own right. Maybe I’ll try a bracelet or two as well.

Now, on to this week’s TAST sampler which will be mostly feather stitch.

I don’t think it’s a surprise that I’m going to stitch an underwater scene 🙂
I thought I’d work the fish with a stem stitch outline and leave it as a sort of negative space fish amid the garden of feather stitch seaweed and coral. I’m going to try and obliterate that darn crease with a heck of a lot of stitching. And beads. Yeah, beads.

Sketched and painted background for a feather stitch embroidery ready to stitch

I’m having a lot of fun with these samplers just starting with “I wonder what will happen if”…

I think I’ll start with the border.

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

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Another Blanket Stitch Sampler, TAST Week 2, part 2

As you can see, I decided to make a second embroidered sampler for TAST week 2, blanket and buttonhole stitch. There were so many things I wanted to try that didn’t work on my other fabric and I had plenty of time so I thought, “Why not?”.

Embroidered blanket and buttonhole stitch sampler

First (thanks to Diane’s comment on my last post), I painted the background with a 50/50 mix of acrylic paint and textile medium, mixed with a lot of water.

Then I traced my outer square, dividing lines and circles with a fine Clover water erasable marker like this one. I haven’t had any trouble with the blue coming back but I haven’t used it on linen yet, which is the fabric that seems to have this problem most often.

Purpose of making this sampler:

  • My first painted background
  • To learn variations of blanket and buttonhole stitch I hadn’t tried before
  • To test different threads in buttonhole circles
  • To record some ideas I had seen online.
  • I really, really wanted to stitch a felt cactus 🙂

Things I learnt:

  • I love working on a painted background.
  • I thought I would hate crossed buttonhole stitch. It turns out I love it.
  • Pulled buttonhole stitch (the purple line second from the bottom) is my new favourite stitch 🙂
  • My favourite threads for stitching large buttonhole circles are vintage Danish flower thread (partial green and gold circle on the top right), and DMC Medici (lime and purple arc at the bottom).
  • I want to stitch cacti on everything but I’m going to develop the idea using different stitches first.

Some useful links:
Buttonhole and blanket stitch on Pintangle (inspiration for my leaves)
Buttonhole wheel on Pintangle (with a pic of the ric rac border on my first row).

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

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