TAST French Knots
I love doing French Knots! This weeks stitch for Take a Stitch Tuesday is French Knots and while I haven't done a special sample I have found pictures of work where I have used them a lot. The first picture was a sample that I did for my C+G Level 2 - it was based on a picture of a starfish, embroidered in 2 thicknesses of variegated perle cotton and surrounded by kantha type quilting.


The second picture is the bag I made at the end of the C+G Level 2 course - much of the embroidery is French Knots in different types and weights of threads.


Recently I went on holiday to Normandy for a week - before I went I bought a pack of threads from the Fibre Factory along with some dyed scrim I then painted a piece of linen and created this freehand design - including of course, French Knots. The rest of the threads are couched down as they are too thick to use for stitching but give wonderful texture to the piece.


This last sample is one that I have done very recently - candlewicking - it will be made into a wallhanging along with some other blocks made using other techniques. I even made one of these blocks travelling through France doing French knots!

This is my sample of running stitch that I have just finished - it is a mixture of patterns created with the stitch and lines of running stitch whipped with various threads.


Today our church has been celebrating it's 350th Anniversary - it is one of the oldest Baptist Churches in the world.

We had a lovely day with special services, many ex-members and friends coming back to share the day with us and to share lunch, and the opportunity to catch up with people we haven't seen for years. This is one of the beautiful flowers arrangements that decorated the church.

Then the young people had a long walk ending in a game of rounders and a barbecue. Now we are all exhausted.

Time to catch up with posting my small samples for the TAST challenge. I don't feel as if I've been very creative with the stitches but I've been busy with other stitching in the meantime and nibbling away at my Module 2 for City and Guilds.

The first stitch is this weeks stitch - Palestrina stitch. I started in straight rows then tried overlapping the rows with different lengthed stitches, then I did the S shape. The bottom two rows were done slightly differently to Sharons instructions - on the first row I added an extra knot to make it more knobbly, on the second row I started off the same but the second 'stitch' I passed under the first stitch then did a final knot - this gives a better right angle - more like a knotted buttonhole stitch.


This is my sample from Week 14 - Bonnet stitch - just a couple of rows - not very exciting.

This example is from Week 13 - Knotted Cretan stitch which was fun to do as it was easier to get some variety in the stitches.


This couching example is for Week 12 - I used some lovely textured thread that I bought in Germany before Christmas and it just cries out to be touched.


This is Week 10s sample - Barred chain - again a fun stitch to play around with.

I haven't posted anything for a few weeks now because I haven't had anything new to show - I have spent some time learning to hand quilt and practising those skills, and the rest of my time has been taken up with work and bannermaking. This weeks TAST stitch is couching so I thought I'd show this example that I did about 18 months ago which I started at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London.

I must start doing some more hand stitching and experimenting with threads.

This weeks stitch for TAST is feather stitch - as I have used this stitch quite a lot recently I decided to group the photos together here (and cheat as I haven't got time before we go away to do another sample). The first sample is from the Personal Library of Stitches course -

This second sample is from my City and Guilds course and is depicting spring - the calico background has been sponge painted with colours taken from a source picture, then the feather stitching worked on top in coordinating colours



The third sample is my final picture for Module 1 on my City and Guilds course - I used feather stitch a lot for the trees at the back of the picture and used a variety of thicknesses of threads on evenweave fabric, again sponge painted.

This is my sample of stitching for Week 6 - Algerian Eyelet Stitch for TAST. I decided to paint some fabric to make it more interesting and tried to alter the sizes of the various arms of the stitches.


Tomorrow we are off to the Lake District for a few days as this week is our half term holiday - it'll be nice to get away for the break.

Well this week I managed to finish and send off Module 1 for my City and Guilds course, to my tutor for her to mark. I am now waiting for it to come back and to get Module 2.

Here is a small sampler that I have just finished for Take a Stitch Tuesday - this week the stitch was Chevron Stitch which I have use to couch down a thick chenille thread and used it to make patterns.

Just a quick post tonight to show a picture of a tree done in detached chain stitch for Take a Stitch Tuesday - I used three different colours of Caron Watercolours thread to stitch. I don't think I've ever done a picture where I've only used one stitch and stitched it so densely before - I quite like the effect.

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.

Happy New Year to all my visitors to this blog!

Stitching update - I have done a bit of stitching over the Christmas break - mainly small samplers of different stitches, one for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge, the other 3 for my City and Guilds course.

The first weeks stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge was Herringbone - I had already done some experimentation with this stitch before Christmas - see here, so I decided to try stitching on hand painted silk with Caron Watercolours thread - it has puckered a bit but creates some interesting patterns.

For the City and Guilds module that I am doing I needed to do a selection of stitch samples, many of which I had done on calico, but since doing the Library of Personal Stitches course had decided to redo on linen. These are the latest ones that I have done - fly stitch. Here I have used a piece of hand dyed scrim over a piece of white linen to add a bit of colour to the base fabric.


These are example of thorn stitch using a variety of thicknesses of yarns and varying the sizes of the stitches.

On the left of this sample is a leaf done in Roumanian stitch and on the right using fishbone stitch.