Raised close herringbone stitch

This morning I wanted to do a few more borders on the sampler I showed yesterday. But I looked at the new TAST-stitch and I couldn't resist! First I made a few leaves with different threads. From left to right: perle 8, 3 threads of stranded DMC and Stef Francis perle 5. I found a slightly different variation in my embroidery book called overlapping herringbone. I tried this one with perle 12, but I didn't experiment with it.

I made a few more leaves on my sampler, even a padded one with felt, but then it was time to make some different shapes. This yellow experiment with perle 5 looks like a fishtail. I started it with the first raised herringbone in a V-shape with a long and a short leg.

For this tree in perle 5 I used brown for the larger straight stitch to make a trunk. The tree is almost 4 cm (1,5 inch) tall.

This last experiment with Stef Francis perle 5 started in the corner of my sampler. I didn't know what I was going to make when I started with the raised herringbone in a V-shape. It looked like it wanted to be a flower, so I added a few pistil stitches.

My complete sampler is here.

Personal Library of Stitches 1

This weekend I started with Sharon's class Personal Library of Stitches. That's why I needed these scissors. I'm working on a postcard size sampler with border stitches. That's why I made all those rows! It's the first time I embroider on linen, I only have used it for cross stitching. While I'm working on this, I try to decide about the size I want to use for my sampler for this class.

These are the stitches I used:

• a half finished Guilloche stitch (I stitched it too close to the edge to finish it!)
• Cretan stitch
• 3 rows of Portuguese stem stitches
• straight single upright feather stitch with slipped detached chain stitches
• Chevron stitch with Algerian eyes
• stepped threaded running stitch
• herringbone stitch with French knots
• Chevron stitch variation
  

Zentangled O

This is my zentangled O for the alphabet ATC swap. I made it for Laura. And look what I've got from Lindy. She made a very pretty zentangled O . . .

. . . and she made 'a little tangle' on a piece of fabric, because she read I make crazy quilts. I like it!

Eastern stitch

I had a lot of fun with the Eastern stitch, the TAST-stitch for this week. My first try was a rectangle with Stef Francis perle 5 at the bottom of my sampler. Somehow this stitch reminded me of Chinese characters. I changed the second part of the stitch to make it look like that. I started the second part of the stitch at the bottom and finished it at the right side. This thread is DMC perle 5.

Then I stitched this variation in a row. I only made the foundation bars at the first stitch. For the next ones, I used the second part of the stitch as foundation bars. I'm not sure you can still call it Eastern stitch, but I like this variation. The top one is a perle 8, the bottom one a Stef Francis perle 5.

This started as a variation of the Chinese character variation. It's not only done in 2 different colours, but the second part of the stitch is different again. I started the second part at the right side and finished it at the bottom. It looks like a bow. I made 4 of those stitches in a square. There's a French knot in the middle, chained cross stitches in the corners and Siennese stitches at the 4 sides. All threads are perle 5 and I decorated it with a few small bugle beads.

This last experiment is done with Caron Watercolours. Just 4 stitches in a square with 2 mm beads.

My finished sampler for week 30 is here.

Rickrack hairpin lace

Last week I wrote about the burgundy rickrack hairpin lace. I like it very much and explored it a little further. I make the strips of hairpin lace while watching television, so I have a few at hand when I want to experiment. I used some different threads first. The top one is a thick shiny cream thread and I had to put the loom at a distance of 2 cm. This lace is 3 cm wide (about 1,25 inch). The bottom one is a cotton/metallic yarn. For this one and the other 2 below I could make the distance of the loom 1 cm again. This metallic lace is 2 cm wide (about 3/4 inch). I wanted to try a double row of rickrack lace. I made 2 strips of hairpin lace and crocheted only one side. Then I made a cable join with the other side of the strips. This first one is with a size 12 thread and it is 2,5 cm wide (about 1 inch).

This second one is made the same way, but with a mercerized cotton for a size 2 crochet hook. The size is 3 cm wide (about 1,25 inch).

I already have some more idea's for this technique, so the story will continue!

There's more information about hairpin lace at Stitch Diva Studio's.

Crazy Monday 24

My crazy Monday quilt is not finished yet, but I made a lot of progress since the last time I wrote about it. I finished the quilting with the help of Sharon's tutorial. This is how it looked at the back. Before I put a false back at the quilt, I attached some beads to the edge of the crochet doily on the block with the dogs. I added this damaged doily when I sewed the blocks together.

Now the false back is added and the top is cut to the correct size. I made the border 1 inch and folded the rest of it to the back of the quilt. I pinned it and stitched running stitches with tacking thread, so I can sew it without all those pins tangling my thread. I couldn't take a picture of this step, the batteries of my camera where empty!

Zentangled C, H & L

These lovely zentangled letters where in my mailbox yesterday. Deveri made them for my zentangled ATC alphabet.

Woven trellis pumpkin

We did some shopping this morning at a garden centre and I just had to buy some pumpkins. When I put them on my serving platter, I remembered the crocheted pumpkins I made last year. They match nicely with the ones I bought. This reminded me of an idea I had last week to embroider a pumpkin. I wanted a raised pumpkin and tried the raised chain. That didn't work, so I tried the woven trellis this time and that worked. The stalk is a padded satin stitch, the curl a whipped backstitch and at the bottom I made a few detached chain stitches. I used perle 8 for my pumpkin and it's height is 2,5 cm (1 inch).

Hairpin lace experiments

After my first experiments with small hairpin lace I wanted to try another yarn: a mercerized cotton for a size 2 crochet hook. All my experiments are with a piece of hairpin lace with 50 loops at both sides. Then I know what size the lace will be with different yarn and patterns, so when I need a bigger piece of lace I can make it the correct size. The distance of my loom was 1 cm. I made a different edge this time. The size of this lace is 2 cm (5/8inch). It looks very pretty on the crazy block I'm working on. But I'm not going to use it, the seam was already embroidered! This second experiment is much wider, the distance of my loom was 2 cm. I used bows of double crochet on the edge, it reminds me of peacock feathers. The size of this lace is 4 cm (1,5 inch).

I liked the smaller size, so I made another piece with the distance of the loom at 1 cm. I had seen some rickrack hairpin lace online, but I didn't know where. So I had to try . . . and try again . . . and again! It took some time, but I'm happy with the result. The size of the rickrack is 2 cm (3/4 inch).

If you want to know more about hairpin lace, just read my first post about it where I wrote about a few helpful tutorials.

Slipped detached chain

The slipped detached chain was the last one for me to catch up on TAST. I have used this stitch on my second encrusted block in July. I already wrote about the floral spray and the slipped detached chain spider. Now I embroidered this stitch on my sampler. I just started with 4 red stitches in a circle and went from there. I used perle 5 & 8, a metallic thread and stranded DMC. My finished sampler for week 21 is here.

Raised chain and variation

After my first experiments with the raised chain I wanted to try some variations. I knew about Deepa's fur stitch, so I tried it with some perle 8. It's a nice stitch, but it looks better in reality. I found some great experiments here and I liked the single raised chain stitches. I tried them with DMC perle 5 . . .

. . . and a variegated Stef Francis perle 5. I experimented with the size of the stitches. The first 2 rows are the raised chain, the bottom row is the variation from week 29.

These last 2 experiments are done in burgundy perle 8. On the left one I made the burgundy raised chain first and added a pink row with perle 12 on both sides. On the right one I added 2 beads to the straight stitches and embroidered the raised chain between them.

My finished sampler for week 28 and 29 is here.

Zentangled A & E

I made 2 more letters for a zentangled alphabet ATC swap and sent them to Janine. This time I only used 2 patterns for each letter.

Raised chain

The TAST-stitches for week 28 and 29 were posted at the same time, because the second one is a variation of the first one. I wanted to see the difference between the 2 variations of the raised chain, so I made them the same size and I used the same thread. For the ladder of straight stitches I used 2 threads of stranded DMC. The raised chain is done in Caron Wildflowers Springtime. The bottom one was the first one I made, it was supposed to be the first variation. But when I finished the variation in the middle, I looked at Sharon's tutorial again and saw I had misread the instructions. I skipped the first part of the stitch, because I thought it was only part of the first stitch. That's why I had to make a third one. So now I have 3 variations of the raised chain. I decided to experiment with the raised chain for week 28. I made a Vandyke stitch with Stef Francis perle 5 and made a row of the raised chain on both sides. At the left side from bottom to top and at the right side the other way round.

Then I remembered the variation of the Portuguese border stitch I made. I used perle 8 in blue and burgundy and started with a whipped wheel with a French knot in the middle. Then I made a circle of raised chain with burgundy. With the same thread I added some extra straight stitches between the blue ones. I'm glad I take a lot of pictures when I'm experimenting, because this looks nice too.

The next blue circle has twice as many stitches as the first one.

Then I added another burgundy circle. I didn't want to see the beginning and ending of every circle, so I made the last stitch a bit different. I took the thread through the beginning loop (the one over the first bar) from left to right. Then I took my thread to the back next to the loop of the last stitch. I hope this makes sence, I didn't take a picture of this step!

My sampler is not finished. I want to try the raised chain for week 29 on it too.

Encaustic tulips

This lovely encaustic ATC made by Dinie was in my mailbox today. It was our second swap, she makes so many pretty ATC's. I sent her my doodle ATC Blue Key. This one is part of my first series of doodle ATC's, before I discovered zentangles.

Small hairpin lace

When I was working on my red shawl, I was already thinking about some smaller hairpin lace. Could I make it small enough to use it on a crazy block? Well, I just had to give it a try. I set the distance of my loom at 1 cm (3/8 inch) and used a size 12 thread and a size 1 crochet hook. It worked and I made a piece of hairpin lace with 50 loops at both sides. Then I removed it from the loom and tried some crochet at the edges. After a few experiments I found the look I wanted to achieve. This lace is 1,5 cm wide (1/2 inch), so I can use it on a crazy block!

To be continued!

Wave stitch

I'm slowly catching up on the older TAST-stitches. The wave stitch is a very easy stitch. My first variation is a combination of the wave stitch and the herringbone stitch. I started with blue perle 12 . . . . . . and finished it with green.

This burgundy variation in perle 8 has long and short legs. After 2 rows the edge of this variation is a straight line again. On my sampler I stitched this one upside down.

And this is my complete sampler. I made the embroidery from the edges to the centre of the fabric. There's a bigger picture of my sampler here.

Woven trellis stitch

Yesterday I started with the woven trellis stitch. I tried a variety of different threads and started with a purple variegated Stef Francis perle 5. I added some green detached chain stitches with perle 12.For the next one I used perle 8 for the woven trellis stitch and perle 12 for the feather stitches.

I made 5 petals for this flowers with Stef Francis perle 5 and 3 drizzle stitches in the centre.

When I visited the Flickr TAST-group yesterday, I saw this lovely fuchsia. I knew I wanted to make one, because I had a fuchsia in my garden for years. Unfortunately it didn't survive the last winter! I used the colours of that one for my embroidered fuchsia. I used perle 8 for the flower and perle 12 for the stem in a whipped chain stitch.

This dragonfly started as a flower with 6 petals. When I finished the foundation stitches for 4 of them, they looked like the wings of a butterfly. But when they were woven, it looked more like the wings of a dragonfly. I made the body with a padded satin stitch. I just made 6 large straight stitches and made the satin stitch over them. I made a few extra straight stitches at the top of the body.

My finished sampler for week 27 is here.