TAST Week 9: Couching

The TAST stitch for this week is couching.  I couched a small snail using Edmar boucle and soy silk.  I added pearl cotton flower stems, detached chain flowers and seed stitches in ribbon.

Menagerie parts 3 and 4

I completed two more squares in the Menagerie sampler.  One is eyelet stitches, the other is herringbone and tied stitches.  I am enjoying making up the patterns in the squares as I go along and trying out different combinations of red white and blue threads.

TAST Week 8: Chain Stitch

The stitch for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge this week is chain stitch.  I used it to create a flower motif based on an old rhinestone brooch.  My motif was stitched free hand so it is not exactly like the brooch but it is similar.

Instead of stitching a new sampler section, I am sharing part of a sampler that I started many years ago.  There are a couple types of chain stitch in this square which is Walsh silk on linen.

For more chain stitch, take a close look at the bark on the tree.  It is all chain stitch in Needle Necessities and Medici wool.  It is a Sundance canvas with stitch guide and it depicts Telaquepaque in Sedona, AZ.  I remember going there with my parents for lunch when we visited friends in the area or stopped on the way to the Grand Canyon.

The shirt is a high school souvenir.  I had friends sign it and then embroidered over their signatures and drawings.  It includes local high school friends and people I met at French Language camp.  A lot of the outlines were done in very small chain stitch.  This photograph shows most of the back.  About 75% of the writing on the shirt has been embroidered.  There is one sleeve and a couple of other places left to embroider.  

 

 

TAST Week 7: Detached Chain

This week the TAST stitch was detached chain.  I skipped the evenweave sampler this week and just created a free embroidery piece.  These abstract flowers are based on the design of my coffee thermos which is orange and white polka dots covered with brightly colored chrysanthemums on it.

There are examples of detached chain in the motif rows of several of the evenweave sampler sections, to add additional texture to the weekly stitches.  Go back and take a look.