Closed herringbone or double backstitch

TAST stitch 124 is closed herringbone stitch. TAST stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, an embroidery challenge at Pin Tangle.

This stitch is not new to me, I used it from time to time as a filling stitch. You can see that in my ATC Blueprint and my embroidery Birth. Sharon wrote that if you stitched the closed herringbone on the back, you can use it for shadow work. So that’s what I did. First I read a lot about it. I found good info online:

• Deepa wrote how she stitched a shadow work butterfly
• I found info about the history of shadow work at Italian Needlework
• and I found a shadow work bunny SAL at Royce’s Hub

But most of my info came from old Dutch embroidery books and magazines. I used the patterns from these magazines.

This leaf was a pattern for a curtain. Luckily I had a coupon of a polyester curtain. I stitched this leaf at the backside in closed herringbone stitch in cotton a broder #16. I secured my thread by weaving it through the threads at the edge, so it’s not visible in the project I’m going to use it for.

This pretty pattern was for a hanky. I used part of an old woman’s dress and 2 threads of stranded floss. I stitched the lines in backstitch on the good side and turned it into a whipped stem stitch at the back to secure my threads. This will be part of the same project as the leaf.

I took these photos when the embroidery was still in my hoop. The blue water soluble pen was not removed yet.

You can take a closer look at my embroidery  here and here.