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.