Portuguese stem stitch

TAST stitch 73 is Portuguese stem stitch. I’ve known for weeks what I wanted to do, because Queenie shared an interesting variation on her blog. Flipping through my new second hand embroidery book I found another variation. And because Queenie told us yesterday, today is World Embroidery Day I just had to stitch it today! I stitched both variations and a normal Portuguese stem stitch on 14 count Aida with 2 different threads, variegated perle 5 and Catania, a crochet cotton.

Let me share the details of the stitches in Catania. It’s a crochet cotton I normally use with a size 2½ crochet hook. This is the normal Portuguese stem stitch.

This is the variation Queenie shared here. It was tricky to get the stitches right, 

but when I used my thumb to hold the first wrap while making the second wrap it worked. It gives a nice open stitch with a wrap on the crossover.

This is the variation I found in my book Het stekenboek voor creatief naaldwerk. It’s like a cross stitch at the crossover of the stem stitch. I made step by step photo’s when I was stitching with perle 5.

This is the first wrap, at the right of the thread coming out of the fabric. Just wrapping the new stitch only.

The second wrap, just like the normal second wrap of the Portuguese stem stitch.

One last old sample, I forgot to share it in my post with old Portuguese stem stitches. I stitched it with DMC 80 on cardstock, after tangling. I wrote about it here.

Take a closer look at my Portuguese stems stitch sampler here.