Welcome to part four of my, “Oh crap, I forgot to blog about all these TAST samplers” catch up series.
Revisiting stitch 86: Knotted cable chain
I only worked a couple of lines of knotted cable chain when the stitch was first announced, so I took an opportunity to go back and work it the way I had originally intended. I used every type of blue thread I had to work an ever decreasing square spiral, starting with the thickest threads and working towards the thinnest. I also worked the chain much closer to the “knot” than I did the first time. I much prefer it worked this way. I think every type of thread looks great, and it has a great texture that I was missing the first time. I filled in the spaces with a spiral of yellow running stitch because a little contrast always looks nice.
Revisiting stitch 45: Portuguese border stitch.
I really like Portuguese border stitch, so when I saw this video on YouTube, I knew I wanted to try embroidering it in a flower shape. I used a range of threads, working one, two, or three lines of the whipped part of the stitch to fill (or not), the petal shapes. For one leaf and part of the border, I added beads to the stitches that form the ladder part of the stitch and left just enough space to work the whipped section at either side.
I’m glad I revisited this stitch as it’s gone from “that’s pretty”, to be one of my all time favourites.
Leaf stitch is not a TAST stitch, however, when I saw this video on YouTube, I knew I had to try it. I found that it looks best in smooth threads. I’d love to try it with a thread similar to the one in the video. The colour changes are a lot more fun than any threads I had at the time. Have you noticed that I like flowers just a little bit yet?
Stitch 95: Zig-zag coral stitch.
I had an absolute blast with zig-zag coral stitch. I did little more than try out a load of different threads and a little bit of couching, but it looked great in anything I tried. I particularly like the way crewel wool turns the knot of the coral stitch into a little loop. (The peach line on the left, 8th row from the bottom if you don’t count the border).
Come back tomorrow for my final TAST 100 stitches instalment!
