This weekend I have been concentrating on working on my City and Guilds Module 1 - I am now aiming to get it finished by the end of the month so that I can send it off for assessment and start on Module 2. With that in mind I have completed the Design for Craft section and am just finishing a few stitch samples and mounting them. Then I have to do the stitch sample for 'winter' and a final landscape piece.

This first sample is using fern stitch and a very pretty rainbow variegated thread - I tried to vary the sizes of the stitches and on the last sample on the right added french knots at the end of each stitch.

The second sample is worked in Cretan stitch on a piece of evenweave fabric which I sponged painted with fabric paint to make it more interesting. I also wove in some knitting wool into one of the samples and for the last sample on the right used 2 different thicknesses of thread and random sized stitches.

Lots of people keep sketchbooks with ideas in them - I decided today that as there are so many variations of each stitch that I would keep a sketchbook devoted to the stitches. One stitch per page, starting with the traditional variations, then different ways of experimenting with it. Here is page 1 - Herringbone stitch (sorry the quality is not brilliant - it wouldn't scan any better)

Having done the Personal Library of Stitches and now taking part in the Take a Stitch Tuesday there are so many inspirational ideas of how to use the different stitches that I thought it would be good to jot them down in one place - some of the ideas are from Sharons notes and others are from samples done by members of the challenge. As I experiment further I can add additional notes and more photos of my samples over the page.