I have taken most of the photos with my mobile phone, so the pictures are blurred. Sorry!
Kafferepet
I have almost come full circle on the embroidery quilting of the inner part of the lace.
Pile 'em On
More rough embroidery has been piled on, and you can see a circle beginning to emerge...
TASTy Beads Galore
I tried to use TAST #116 Beaded Vandyke Stitch for the yellow flower. Not easy, not well made, not looking good... I can not put the blame on the blurred photo!
Chicken Scratch
I had the opportunity to make another train journey and continued working on this piece. Although I have not much left, I begin to feel the pattern is rather boring and will see if I should add some more designs, maybe in a heavier thread...
Swedish Cushion
Yesterday we got a new TAST stitch, #140 Threaded Cable Chain, and this will be added to the cushion and shown next week.
There are still a few blank areas on my fabric which could benefit from a cluster of stitches, but with #140 I will have added all the non-beaded TAST stitches we have learned. I don't want to repeat the same stitches again, so what should I do? I am calling this the Swedish Cushion so why not add a true Swedish stitch, although it is not, and might never become a TAST stitch?
May I introduce you to the Anundsjö stitch:
It starts like a split stitch, either splitting one thread or dividing two threads.
The anchoring stitch goes into the fabric outside the split stitch.
Then you add another stitch, either as a detached one or following a line.
I think the charm of the stitch is its irregularity and scratchy look.
The story has it that it was 'invented' by Brita-Kajsa Karlsdotter who took up embroidery when she was elderly and her vision had become slightly impaired, explaining the uneven look.
I used it on the cushion to make small emblems like these:
The centre is worked in Chain Stitch and Laid Filling Stitch often found in Halland Embroidery, another traditional Swedish style from the west coast county of Halland.
26 comments:
Thanks for sharing your stitch, I like to learn stitches from around the world. And the emblem looks nice.
Queenie your beaded vandyke stitch looks good to me although I always think it is rather an ugly stitch and rarely use it myself. The way you have attached the lace is so pretty and as for your scrap thread piece it is really coming to life, maybe I will save my scrap threads for you will next august! The chicken scratch looks rather relaxing to do, great for a train journey and very impressed with your Swedish stitch, can see Sharon sharing this with us when she restarts tast in the new year and I will certainly have it on my next crazy block
Thank you Angelica, I agree that is is nice to learn stitches from around the world. Have have recently looked at some lovely Indian stitches, rich and airy at the same time.
I visited Janet at Caribou Crossing and saw her Indian stitchery. Boy,there are a lot of stitches out there. You could be doung that cushion for another few years!
I wonder how many embroidery stitches there are in the world. I agree with you that if you did one stitch a week you would be able to continue for years.
There seems to be especially many Indian stitches.
The Beaded Vandyke was especially difficult on that small space. I MIGHT take them out and try another stitch instead.
I hope to show how to make use of the very short pieces of thread on the Pile 'em On for next week. However, I do NOT need your contribution of orts!!! Use them up yourself!!!!
It would be fun if the Anundsjö stitch becomes a TAST stitch!
The embroidery on lace is looking beautiful. beaded Vandyke is one tricky stitch. I tried to anchor it to the cloth, to regain some control. the piling up of stitches is growing up very well. I copied your working on chicken scratch during a train journey, and worked on cross stitch edges travelling in car. Thanks for sharing this new stitch , its history and its usage as filling. There are many Indian stitches because, each region work and specialize in their form of embroidery.
I adore all your beautiful stitchery Queenie........great to see it developing, week by week !
I love the texture of the vandyke stitch !
hugs
Chris Richards xx
Great progress on all your projects! You get so much done in a week.
Lots to see this week, love the rough embroidery.Thanks for sharing how to stitch Anundsjö stitch, I will give it a try when I'm cought up on my TAST stitching. It looks like a fun stitch to experiment!
I agree that the beaded vandyke stitch is not your best but flowers in nature are not always perfect either. The Anundsjö stitch may suit me with it being irregular, thanks for sharing.
Gorgeous work!
Thanks Angela, but, well, certainly not the photos, ha, ha!
The TASTy Beads Galore has been difficult from the start. I should have worked an abstract design instead of flowers, then each tricky stitch could have been worked in a way that suits it best.
I am glad to hear you managed to use the time and stitch on a train/in a car - many people feel motion sickness in such a situation and can't even read a map.
Then Indian stitches share the same history as Swedish, ours are very 'local' and feature on folk costumes and religious textile as can be seen in local museums. They were beginning to be forgotten but there is a new embroidery, knitting and local craft boom so I hope they survive and will spread. Let's share our embroidery stitches with the rest of the world.
Happy stitching, Chitra.
I just wish I had a professional photographer to help me when the camera goes haywire! However, I think the blurred photos hide the horrible Vandyke stitches, which is very good, ha, ha!
By the way, I really enjoyed seeing some of your eye candy on your blog. More please!!
Well, I did progress, but the result was not so good. As for getting things done in a week, YOU are a great source of inspiration, Pamela. For me it was hard to squeeze everything in, with many other things to attend to. Let's hope this week will give us plenty of time for quiet stitching.
I think Anundsjö could be used in many ways as it is equally good in a line as detached. The anchoring stitch can be long or short and come off the sprit stitch at any angle. Do give it a try, I'd love to see what you create with it.
Yes, thankfully natural flowers are seldom 'perfect'. I now regret starting the Beaded TAST sampler with flowers, it would have been so much easier to use a geometric and free design where each stitch can be used in its best form.
I hope to see the Lins Arty Blobs' take on the Anundsjö stitch! Have fun!
I LIKE your Beaded van Dyke stitches and the flower. If you feel badly about the flower, take comfort from knowing nothing in nature is perfect.
The Anundsjö stitch is interesting and the possible reason it was created.
I enjoyed all of the comments today and will look for more Indian stitches too as I enjoyed the few I have done.
Hi Maureen,
You are right, a flower design is forgiving as nothing in nature is perfect.
I tried out the Phanda/Phunda stitch which I learned about at Stitching Stories http://stitchesstories.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/
I am so happy to learn a lot from other bloggers.
By the way, I have tried to post a comment on your blog many times recently but not been successful...
I love the simplicity of chicken scratch, and don't think yours looks in the least bit boring. I've been playing around with some recently and have had fun combining backgrounds with varying size of square–perhaps that's a solution? Taking photos for blogs can be frustrating, either the weather is too dark, or the camera misbehaves, then there's the time you spend uploading etc–time that could be spent sewing!
I was charmed by Chicken Scratch design when I saw it on a smaller sampler. On this large rectangle of fabric, it looks flat and uninteresting. I think your idea of varying the size of the squares, or the thickness of the thread will be the ticket. It is going to be round 'sausage' type cushion so the problem will not be as obvious.
I share your views of photo problems totally! My camera is a naughty one and sometimes suddenly misbehaves. Time to change it?
Lovely work! may be you could introduce the stitch to Tast and by next year everyone could be stitching the Swedish stitch.
That would be nice! I think there must be hundreds and hundreds of stitches from all over the world and it would be wonderful if they all made it to the TAST list. The question is how long would it take to do them all, there are only 52 Tuesdays in a year...
This scratchy little stitch is looking lovely in your emblem. It is so surprising in this way.
Thank you. I have actually not used this stitch a lot before so it was nice to find a design for it.
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