Linked chain stitch

TAST stitch 95 is linked chain stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, 
an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

Last week I prepared a new 14 count Aida sampler to use as  a doodle cloth. The linked chain stitches are my first experiments on it.

These are the first rows in yellow perle 5 and green perle 8.

Here I used 2 different colours of stranded floss in 2 needles and alternated them to stitch the linked chain stitch. This would have looked much better in thicker thread like perle 5 or 8.

Two rows in perle 5. The green row is pushed in, so there’s no space between the backstitch links. In the bottom row I whipped the backstitch links with a fancy embroidery thread.

This is a progress photo of the green row. Every chain stitch is stitched around 2 touching backstitches. It produces a nice bulky line, great for sumptuous surface embroidery!

In my last row I experimented with an open chain stitch. It needed 2 backstitch links, which I stitched in a triangle shape. As usual I took some step by step photo’s as a reminder.

The first step is the same as the normal open chain stitch.

The first backstitch link.

And the second backstitch link.

Take a closer look at my complete Aida sampler here.