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TAST Samplers for Weeks 19 and 20

After having so much fun with my plushwork embroidery over the past few weeks I have a little catching up to do with the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. Here are my samplers for weeks 19 and 20, bullion knots and butterfly chain.

Bullion Knot Embroidery Sampler

Whilst I’m quite fond of working bullion knots and I think most of mine came out great (thanks to using a milliner’s needle and smooth threads), I think the bullion knot is best suited to flowers. The couching is a lot of fun but I’m not sure where I would ever use it.

Confession time: I tried to work a bullion rose but it just looked like rubbish so I made the 6 pointed star to cover up where I ripped it out so many times 😛

I ripped out the threads I didn’t like,  and the ones that are left are:

  • Centre caramel and navy circle: size 5 perle cotton.
  • Aqua flower and purple oval: tapestry wool
  • Star trail: silk ribbon
  • Everything else: 6 strands of stranded embroidery cotton.

I worked:

  • Regular bullion knots
  • Looped bullion knots (the brown ones in the centre of the variegated orange flower).
  • Looped bullion knots couched down (in the green and purple flower).
  • Lots of bullion knots couching down other threads.

Next is my butterfly chain sampler

Butterfly Chain Embroidery Sampler

Obviously this would make great borders on lots of things. I like the thicker threads the best.

From the top row:

  • Size 5 mercerised cotton for both stitches and tying strand.
  • Size 5 mercerised cotton for the straight stitches and 3 different cottons for the tying.
  • Fingering weight knitting wool for the straight stitches and glitter knitting yarn for the tying.
  • The same glitter yarn for the straight stitches and cotton/acrylic for tying. I shouldn’t have used the cotton/acrylic as I’m allergic to acrylic and paid for it with a rash up my arm for two days!
  • All cotton/acrylic. For the tying threads, I slipped the second one under the knot made by the first instead of making another knot. I tried both ways and this looked much nicer.
  • Next row: Size 3 mercerised cotton for both. This is my favourite thread for this stitch.
  • Pink size 3 mercerised cotton with a finer cotton and beads for tying.
  • For the square the lavender is size 3 mercerised cotton and the orange is finer (I’m not sure what number as I never had the skein band).
  • And finally the small purple section is again size 3 mercerised cotton.

I suspect liking purple glitter yarn this much when you’re older than 5 is illegal.

Now onto the knotted cretan stitch. I thought I had already done some on my cretan stitch samplers, then I remembered that I purposely didn’t because I knew it was coming up a stitch for it’s own week.

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

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Posted in Embroidery