Sunday Stitch School - Revision: Stitches 26 - 30

Since the start, in November last year, we have put 30 stitches under our belt here at Sunday Stitch School.
Let's review the last five ones.

Click on the headline to learn each stitch and read more about it.

26 Zig-zag Stitch
This is an easy stitch with interesting results.
Do check out the beautiful patterns that Annet has made.

27 Buttonholed Buttonhole Stitch
This is also an easy stitch and can be varied in many ways. Have a look at what Chitra made.

 28 Half Bullioned Chain Stitch
Bullion knots are not very liked, I have noticed. I must confess I am not a great fan of them either, but I think that when successfully made, they are very attractive. This version is fun.

29 Madam Totsuka's Loop Stitch
This turned out to be a new stitch to all except one reader. I found it easy to make and difficult to curb. That means it is perfect for wild life embroidery, flowers, plants, hair and fur!

30 Holbein Stitch
Although this is a very basic and simple stitch, it can be hard to make really even. As Rachel, who makes beautiful work, pointed out, it is these simple stitches that need to be practiced, as mistakes show up easily.

Now for some revision homework:
Make a seasonal Sunbonnet Sue and use mainly the five stitches above.

World Embroidery Day 2017

Today is an important day for promoting and taking part in embroidery.
I worked at home, on my own and for only a few hours, unfortunately.

I started on a stump work carrot. It will be made into a greeting card for someone who has a kitchen garden.

As it is not completed I will make tomorrow my own private World Embroidery Day.

I hope you have enjoyed the day.

Friday Homework for Lesson 30: Holbein Stitch

Teacher:   Good evening. Time to show your homework.

Student:   OK, here it is.

This is on the Aida sampler,

and this is a square I filled in on the 'floppy canvas'.

Teacher: Hmm, you haven't been very adventurous, have you?
Student:  No, I'm sorry.
Teacher:  Well, next Sunday we will have a revision lesson.
                       You have a new chance to show what you can do.
Student:  OK, Miss.

Don't miss it! WED 30th July

It is time to promote embroidery!

World Embroidery Day is celebrated on July 30th every year, and 2017 is no exception.

Read here about how it all started in Sweden and how it has swept the Globe.

Do find time to take a stitch on Sunday.
Get together with friends or sit alone.
Stitch in school, at home, in the park, in a café, up a tree, on a mountain top, in the cabin of a yacht, in bed, on the train, in the studio or in the hammock.... Wherever you are I hope you will have the chance to enjoy needle and thread.

Make progress on a Work In Progress project or try your hand at something new. Blackwork, Hardanger, Kogin, Brazilian Embroidery, Stumpwork, Cross Stitch, Kutch work, Crewel, Hedebo, Canvas, Needlepainting, Kantha..... Whatever form you choose I hope you will enjoy needle and thread.

WIPW - Torchietti?

Work In Progress Wednesday -

well it has been slow. It is simply too hot and far too humid in Tokyo to quilt.

I think the wadding has gained weight because of the damp and the quilt itself is more awkward than before to handle.

Nevertheless, progress on

Trinity Green

stands like this:

Everyone of the 38 'snakes' have been quilted in the ditch.

Three of the 'spinach tagliatelle' now have a snail pattern. Am I cooking Torchietti?

Instead of free motion quilting, which turned out to be too hard on this large and heavy quilt, I settled for the walking foot and one of the 'fancy' stitches in the sewing machine's program.

As you can see, the 'cooking' does not always go well, some of the swirls are too tight or too stretched out. The walking foot has trouble going backwards.

I will try to find a better and flatter place to let the quilt rest on. Hopefully that will easy the weight. Bundling everything up in my lap and packing it up behind the machine is making it hard to control...

This will just have to be slooow progress!

Sunday Stitch School - Lesson 30: Holbein Stitch

Welcome to another day in the library at Sunday Stitch School.

We need a linear stitch and after looking trough this pile

the Holbein Stitch was picked. It features in every one of the books. It is an important stitch for Assisi embroidery and Blackwork.

Other English names are Double Running Stitch (tells you how it is worked!), Line Stitch, Two-sided Line Stitch, Two-sided Stroke Stitch, Square Stitch, Romanian Stitch and Chiara Stitch.
In Swedish it is called Holbeinsöm. In French there are two names: Point de Holbein or Double Point Avant.

Work it like this:

 Make a line of even Running stitches

 Work the empty spaces on the return journey. If two different colours are used, you get a more striking effekt and it won't be confused with Back Stitch.

It looks good when it is used to make pattern like this.

Here is some more interesting reading and great pictures..

Homework:

1) Make a row on the Aida sampler

2) Fill in a square on this 'canvas'.

Friday Homework for Lesson 29: Madam Totsuka's Loop Stitch

Here is my homework for Sunday Stitch School's Lesson 29.

A line of Madam Totsuka's Loop Stitch on my Aida sampler:

This stitch needs to be anchored properly and to be able to do so on Aida, you need to work in the woven areas between the holes...

Freeform embroidery:
I made a small floral display. The stitch works nicely in a circle for flowers and if the loops are large enough they could go for leaves. With small loops they make a very knobby stem.

I will definitely use this stitch for embellishing seams on crazy quilting.

WIPW - Snake Guts

Work In Progress Wednesday. Time for a report:

It has been too hot to work during the daytime so I have let the midnight light burn while quilting

Trinity Green 
All the in-the-ditch quilting is done and I have something that looks like Snake Guts (intestine).

I am still pondering what to do with the 'tagliatelle' quilting. Free motion or Fancy Machine stitching?

NHK Partnership Quilt

I have completed the block for  NHK's Partnership Quilt project. As you may remember, the theme was Tree of Life.
It was hard to do on this small scale, 15cmx15cm, and I settled for round leaves and made one round Swedish flag.

Last day for a contribution is 31st July. Read more here.

Sunday Stitch School: Lesson 29 - Madam Totsuka's Loop Stitch

Welcome to the Library at Sunday Stitch School.
Today I want you to have a look at another of Madam Sadako Totsuka's books: Totsuka Embroidery Stitch Book 12.

This book is devoted to the Loop Stitch and the Rosetta Stitch and a lot of arrangements.

A stitch called Loop Stitch (also known as Detached Chain Stitch or Knotted Loop Stitch) can be found in other stitch dictionaries.

Today's stitch is a different one all together. To keep them apart, I will give it the nickname of  Madam Totsuka's Loop Stitch. It is a version of the Chain Stitch.

To work it successfully you need plain weave fabric, a needle with a sharp tip and a thread that can be split:

Come out of the fabric and pierce the thread where it came out.

 Take the needle out a step below and place the thread underneath the needle.

 Insert the needle at the start, again piercing the thread.

 When you pull through, a loop is formed and anchored firmly.

 It should stand up like this

This is the basic Madam Totsuka's Loop Stitch.

To make a line, take the needle out at the bottom of that straight stitch, and repeat in the same way, making sure the loops are anchored firmly.

After a while you will have a line of loopy loops.

Your homework
will be to work
1) a line on the Aida sampler. Use a sharp tipped needle and fix the stitches securely as Aida is not really a suitable fabric to work on.

2) also work some free form embroidery on this scrap of batik.

 
I hope you will enjoy this 'new' stitch. Should you have seen it before and have a name for it, please let me know.

Friday Homework for Lesson 28: Half Bullioned Chain Stitch

It's Friday here at Sunday Stitch School and I'll have to produce my homework for stitch #28 Half Bullioned Chain.

The task was to work it on my Aida sampler, and here it is:

There was no time, nor any energy to make anything else with the stitch - unfortunately.

I quite like the buttonhole look of the stitches.

Work In Progress Wednesday - Woolly Summer Blooms

Work In Progress Wednesday:

Trinity Green
I have only added a few new rows of straight line quilting - it's been too hot and humid to work on the bulky quilt.

Greeting Card

I made another greeting card with a basket of summer blooms. Most of them are made with wool and that, too, was a bit to 'woolly' to work in the heat and humidity of Tokyo.

 Most of my Appleton yarn is in muted tones, good for the basket and the greens, but the flowers needed a bit more colour and I added some perl and stranded floss.

Sunday Stitch School - Lesson 28: Half Bullioned Chain Stitch

Welcome to the Library at Sunday Stitch School. Tonight we are studying another of Ms Sadako Totsuka's books of altered embroidery stitches,
this one:

where arrangements on the Chain Stitch are explored.

I picked stitch #12 on page 15. It is really a combination of the Chain Stitch and the Bullion Knot Stitch on one side. I will therefore give it the unofficial nickname of Half Bullioned Chain Stitch, as Ms Totsuka haven't given it a name.

Work the Half Bullioned Chain Stitch like this:

Use a Milliners (or straw) needle

and stitch away from yourself.

Begin as you would with a Chain Stitch, but 

 

first wind the thread around the needle as many times as you want the Bullion Knot to be long.

Then pull the needle through and gently tighten the stitch into a nice and plump Bullion Knot.

Insert the needle where you started the Chain and come out in the same hole as you exited.

Form a new stitch in exactly the same way, until you have a line like this.

Your homework will be to make a row of the Half Bullioned Chain Stitch on your sampler. Should you find the time, please feel free to play around with this new stitch in a project.