Old barred chain and alternating barred chain

The TAST stitch for week 12 is barred chain and alternating barred chain. Just like every Tuesday I wanted to show you some old samples of this stitch. To my astonishment I only found my sampler for TAST 2007. I never used this stitch again! So today I show you the details of my TAST 2007 sampler. It’s stitched on muslin with 2 threads of stranded DMC. I started with a barred chain doodle.

Then I made a barred chain circle and decorated it with beads.

Here I experimented with alternating barred chain.

My last experiment was a barred chain doodle with a piece of pink tulle on the muslin.

You can see the complete 2007 sampler in my original post here. It will be fun to experiment with this stitch again!

Second pebble

Yesterday I prepared the base for my second pebble. I rust dyed the muslin in
a tin box a few weeks ago. I wrapped the fabric around a rusty screw with an eye.

After rinsing, washing, drying and ironing it looked like this.

I secured most things I wanted to trap between 2 layers of muslin with a few stitches. At this point only the bottom fabric was stretched in a hoop. 

After trapping them between the 2 layers of muslin I stretched both pieces of muslin together in my 6 inch embroidery hoop.

A detail in a different angle. I’m looking forward to start stitching on this pebble.

This pebble is part of the pebble adventure at Stitchin Fingers. 
We use this tutorial to stitch our pebbles.

TAST week 2 & 7 & 11

This is my unfinished 6 x 6 inch (15 x 15 cm) TAST sampler with buttonhole stitch, detached chain stitch and a woven and whipped wheel. The fabric for this sampler is rust dyed in a tin box by me. I used blue stranded DMC, light blue Caron Wildflowers and brown DMC broder special. I wrote a tutorial for the woven and whipped wheel, you can find it here.

There’s a bigger photo of this sampler on my Flickr-page.

Woven and whipped wheel tutorial

The TAST stitch for week 11 is whipped wheel. I repeated a woven and whipped wheel I stitched on a crazy ornament a few years ago. It was a present for a quilting friend, so I only had a photo to see how I did it. I couldn’t find my notes 

(I had no journal at the time), but when I started stitching I remembered how 

I stitched it. First I drew 3 circles with a water soluble pen on my rust dyed fabric. The sizes are 3, 2 and 1 cm.

This template made it very easy.

I used a DMC broder special for my wheel. First I made 8 spokes from the outmost circle to the centre. Then 8 spokes between them from the outmost circle to the 1 cm circle. And finally 16 spokes between those from the outmost circle to the 2 cm circle.

I started with a whipped wheel. When the first circle was filled with whipped stitches I switched to woven stitches. If you’re not familiar with the woven wheel, you can find a tutorial in Sharon’s stitch dictionary. Start weaving under the new spokes to keep the stitches in place.

I know they always say you need an odd number of spokes with a woven wheel, but with a simple trick you can use an even number. After completing every round, just go under 2 spokes instead of 1 and continue weaving the normal way. This shifts one spoke every round and is not visible when the wheel is finished.

After a few rounds I switched to whipped spokes again until I finished the second circle.

Then I made a few rounds of woven stitches and finished it with whipped stitches.

I hope to share a photo of my sampler tomorrow, it’s still wet after removing the water soluble pen.

Zentangle challenge #62

This week’s zentangle challenge at I am the diva is to use a spiral string and tangle it with Paradox.

I used a big permanent marker for the spiral string and tangled it with a 0.2 Sakura pen.

Old whipped wheels

It’s Tuesday, time to share a few old samples of whipped wheels, the TAST stitch for week 11. The first one is my favourite. It’s a combo of whipped and woven wheel on a crazy ornament, a gift for a quilting friend. The thread is broder special. Maybe I’m going to repeat this wheel on my TAST sampler and take step by step photo’s to show you how I stitched it.

My second sample is a whipped wheel on my first pebble. I think this week’s stitch gives me the excuse to start a second one! I dyed a piece of muslin for my second pebble in this box.

This is a whipped wheel on a woven ATC. It’s stitched with 2 threads of stranded DMC on felt.

A whipped wheel on a bead, a detail on my ornament Reply to Good Morning. I’m not sure about the thread, I think it’s a perle 8.

 A whipped wheel on my sampler There Is No Spoon. The thread is an overdyed Stef Francis perle 5.

A detail on my sampler Touch with French knots, beads and an oyster stitch.

And this is my wonky TAST 2007 sampler. The threads are mostly stranded DMC, only the lilac woven wheels are stitched with a tulle knitting yarn.

Be sure to read the comments on Sharon’s post and follow the links for more eye candy!

Couching & running stitch

In this 6 x 6 inch sampler I combined the TAST stitches for week 9 and 10, couching and running stitch. I stitched a pattern from my studio journal on a linen fabric. The running stitches are done with Caron Watercolors and I couched the cotton/linen knitting yarn with 2 threads of stranded DMC. It will get a border later.

There’s a bigger photo of this sampler on my Flickr-page.