WIPW - Waste Canvas

Even in the extreme heat time passes quickly, and I must leave my Work In Progress Wednesday report.

Sunday Stitch School Stitch Sampler

It was time for some canvas stitches. To get a reasonably good grid I used waste canvas to guide the needle.

First I added a smattering of individual canvas stitches shooting out of the cornucopia. For each of them there will then be a block, filling up a square or rectangle.

#217 Simplified Rice Stitch (light blue), #206 Rapid Stitch (blue) and #22 Vault Stitch (green). 

Friday Revision Homework - Stitches: 206 - 210

 I like monochrome prints, you know, blue on blue, yellow on yellow, blue on blue. That is why I first coloured Sunbonnet Sue's clothes with wax crayons, set the wax with a hot iron and then embroidered on top of in the same colour as the crayon.

Sue is walking with heavy steps into a future of uncertainty ... Hopefully she will find solidarity, hope and peace along the way.

Other stitches used: 

Stem Stitch for the outlines and movement of skirt and scarf, 

Straight Stitch to add extra petals on the sunflower, 

a triple Star Filling Stitch for the centre of the flower.

Sunday Stitch School - Revision: Stitches 206 - 210

Time to look back at the five most recent stitches and then make a Sunbonnet Sue sampler.

Click on the title to get the instructions.

206 Rapid Stitch

Great on Canvas, but can also be used for individual stitches

207 Plaited Edge Stitch

This really is a great stitch to strengthen and/or adorn an edge, even a raw and fraying one.

208 Star Filling Stitch

I have used this stitch on endless projects, yet for years I failed to add it to the Sunday Stitch School's collection. Why, I wonder...

This is such a pretty stitch. Play around with different thread!

209 Padded Cross Stitch

I called this cheating, because it is so easy just to double the stitch. 

Actually I should  say it is well within 'legal limits' of what we can do to a stitch, in my opinion anyway. Or is there a stitch police out there who disagrees?

After all a Berry Stitch is just a doubling of a Lazy Daisy Stitch, isn't it? We really should be able to do a 'Padded' Running Stitch, Fly Stitch, Wheatear Stitch... Indeed any stitch could be 'padded'!

210 Closed Fly Stitch

Here is another stitch that should have been introduced LONG ago. 

Dear Closed Fly Stitch, please accept my apologises for keeping you in the shadow for such a long time. Please come out and SHINE!

Homework:

Let Sunbonnet Sue show off these five stitches as best she can.

 

Friday Homework for Lesson 206: Rapid Stitch

Yes, Rapid Stitch is a rapid stitch! Especially on the

Aida Sampler

Sunday Stitch School Reference Chart

Mottled Wool Sampler

Canvas Sampler

Sunday Stitch School - Lesson 206: Rapid Stitch

Let's learn a Canvas Stitch today. It is called Rapid Stitch,  appropriately named as it works up quickly.

You can find instructions here:

arts and design

badasscrossstitch

and in Mary Thomas's Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches, if you have her book, p 157.

There is a small difference in the instructions. Can you spot the difference between these two?

Of course you can! It is a question of which hole to use for the final part of the stitch. Well, let's look at the instructions first and discuss that later.

Start by making a Cross Stitch (use 5 x 5 holes).

Then make two diagonal stitches, starting from the middle hole at the bottom.

Then another set of two diagonal stitches, this time from 

either of these two holes, red or green.

I used the green hole.

So here is the Rapid Stitch, according to Mary Thomas's instructions.

If you prefer the 'red hole', you get Badass's style, which is on the left here.

The Rapid Stitch is a needlepoint stitch, so it is best done in wool. Then the fluffy fibres will cover much more of the fabric.

Homework:

Work rapidly on these samplers, as well as the Canvas Sampler.