TAST latest

This week's double buttonhole is nice, though again I'm having trouble thinking creatively with it. An inadvertant variation is on the left. I tried doing the stitch without reference to the instructions and didn't remember it right. So I was doing the second loop along the bar next to the first loop instead of in it. Looks quite nice I think. The right hand line will be finished today. There is a piece of painted nappy liner laid over the fabric as it got dirty!!There's cable chain here, then rice stitch . . . . . . and the rods a friend has turned for me to make up my sample strips into scrolls eventually at the end of the challenge.

TAST oysters

Blogger scared me this morning by coming up 'this page cannot be displayed' every time I asked it to load a picture. Then suddenly it started complying, so I have put ALL my oyster stitch pix up while the mood is good!

Here's a 'seam treatment' idea, and flowers, and single 'filler' stitches, and- great discovery - the long-stalked variety!

I like the way you can pack this stitch together - the cream-green-brown-gold bit.

Bits of the next stitch - palestrina - creeping in at the bottom. That's the thing with my continuous strip, I don't really want gaps. And the long stalks a bit closer.

I like doing small amounts of stitching on small bits of felt, a sort of rival / companion to the main strip.

Why is an oyster stitch so called? Does it look like an oyster? Maybe a bit like part at least of the live thing inside the shell I got interested in the long stalk possibility and began finding things to do with the stalk - couch down with various stitches, wrap loosely, wrap with buttonhole (buttonhole bar) . . .

I did eat an oyster, just the once, when accompanying a school trip to Brittany. We had a tour of an oyster farm which finished with a plateful to pass around. Imagine 30 teenage girls squawking about trying these strange-looking things!

Little samples . . .

. . . on scraps of felt, in a small book i made. Nice in theory, but the book is really fat and doesn't close of course! Looking for solutions. Maybe if the pieces are placed on the pages so that they interlock? Top one left is herringbone with weaving over it, and on the right wrapped with buttonhole stitch. The rest cross stitch.

TAST miscellany -

- knotted cretan, which does make nice twiggy sprays. But isn't it close to feather stitch? I think it was the latter I was stitching some of the time!
- some couching, trying various stitches over the laid threads. Fly stitch across 2 laid threads is interesting. Also, vertically on the right, over the yellow thread I tried it with bonnet stitch. So long as the height of the stitch is right and the pass under is above the laid thread and the 'chain'-forming stitch below, it works well, with an interesting edge formed by the chain-like part of the stitch. Also used it to fill a space.
- barred chain, used it to fill spaces.
- I used a brown range of threads for a change, including wools.

Tast catchup . . .

. . . with the tail end of my long sampler strip. It's a bit scrappy, but there are examples of up and down buttonhole, including a seam treatment on the left with bullion stitches and beads. I've also 'invented' (maybe!) a detached version of the buttonhole - the four-legged stars. There are some more of them on the bottom strips of the postcards (which still need their edges doing). There's also some couching using various stitches, including alternating barred chain. And a separate piece of couching. I need to do more barred chain as I don't find it very easy. The loop always seems to collapse and squash up to nothing. Must try harder.

After some thinking about maybe changing the form of the sampler I've decided to use another long strip, and will be turning the finished one into a scroll for storing.

TAST catchup and chevron stitch

1. a catchup pic of some detached chain

2. ditto with cretan stitch

3. chevron on the strip sampler

4. doodling with chevron to make a background for the fish (kantha)

5. chevron used in a complex seam

TAST detached chain . . .

I found it hard this time to think of variations with this stitch for myself . Except for the curvy line at the top where I was thinking a line in basic chain is obvious, but how could a line be done with separate stitches? And then I tried flowers, using the stitch both ways round, and one with long tie stitches. Also the textural 'jumble' of different threads. Then some couching. Also Sharon's padded flower. Then I resorted to Google and came across Velvet Stitch and an interesting sampler of detached chain, from which I have copied some ideas.

I still want to try some of the variations of chain stitch done as detached stitches e.g. twisted chain etc.
And if anyone please could give me advice on how best to work a 'jumble' of stitches? I found it more baffling than I expected, and I'm usually not bad at random!

New buttonhole sampler . . .

. . . completed this Sunday evening, 19.15 GMT. Looking at Sharon's counted thread samples I was struck with how different the stitch looks worked on that sort of cloth. I tried counting threads on my sampler strip but it proved to be too small for comfort and my eyes were hurting with the effort, so I gave up after two tries. Other bits are buttonhole wheel, done both ways round, couching, appliqué and a small detached stitch piece.

I particularly like the twisty lines top right, the filled areas, the laced back to back rows, the buttonhole bars and the eyelets below the bars (yes, they do have a hole in the middle, hard to see). I've also decided to try and use each stitch in a complex seam, as an interesting exercise , but I think this one could be nicer really.

Buttonhole stitch . . .

I've had a bit of a rest after last week's marathon - these pics were not done for TAST but for a hands-on session at the Macclesfield Embroiderers' Guild meeting in November where we could choose one out of five different stitches to play with. I was in charge of the buttonhole table and did these samples of a range of possible variations. So I haven't worked them again for TAST, but in my next stitchy post there will be a smaller sampler with some further interesting applications.
Using buttonhole to fill a space is interesting. If you work from the bottom (here, right), of the space, each following row will come over the ridge of the stitch and give a smooth effect.Doing it the other way round, from the top of the space down, you keep the ridges. These were circular pieces because they were in a small round frame. Obviously need finishing. One day! And this one, just 2 lines of buttonhole, but I like the effect of the space between them.

Herringbone update . . .

I added a bit more to the freeform herringbone sample for Sharon b's TAST challenge. Around the mirror top right and at the bottom of the piece are some of the extended stitches I was talking about in the last post.

Take a Stitch . . . .

I'm not going to be able keep up this speed, you can be sure, but, while the going is good, here's my first response to Sharon Boggon's Take a Stitch Tuesday. Each week she is putting up a stitch to experiment with and over 100 people are participating. The first one this week is herringbone:
I've chosen to use a long strip from a curtain fabric remnant as my main 'sampler', hoping to end up with a long scroll of stitch experiments. Usefully for this particular stitch the fabric is woven with countable threads and heavier lines in the weave across the strip which form stripes of varying but regular sizes. So for once in my stitching life I can get straight lines and even-sized stitches!
I've worked the stitch in, mostly, regular fashion, laced it, repeated it to make overall patterns (which remind me of chicken wire!), tried it close together, stretched out, doubled/trebled /quadrupled. And I've worked a line as if it were a seam treatment in crazy patchwork.
It all looks very sedate for me, but I have broken out with some very irregular stuff on a separate piece, below. The idea is to create texture, varying threads, length and angle of stitch, but keeping to the essential movement of the stitch where the needle is being pushed in backwards but the thread is taken forward to advance the line of stitching against the direction of the needle (if you see what I mean?)

I also remembered seeing herringbone used to sew on mirrors. This is a large holographic sequin. If pushing the needle under the grid of threads that hold the mirror in place counts as the top part of the stitch, then I guess it would count .

I've seen a lengthened form of herringbone used in Indian work, in a copy of Stitch (with the Embroiderers' Guild) magazine, which I shall try out when I can find it.

Later in the day, have found a small picture, in Stitch issue 33, Feb/March 2005. There are 2 articles in the mag., one a project by Surjeet Husain, and one about her and her work. On the link page the last small pic of all shows this stitch. Best I can do.