TAST, which stands for Take A Stitch Tuesday, is an excellent online stitch course by Sharon Boggon of Pintangle. The instructions are clear and there are many examples of how to use the stitches in projects. I am happy to have learned the 140 stitches in this course and have made several stitch samplers as well as numerous other projects, inspired by Sharon's stitches, for example these two cards:
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| Cardigan in Magic Chain Stitch and dress in Woven Picot Stitch |
However, I am hungry for more stitches, and plan to work my way through the books in my needlework library, learning stitches, many that will be new to me.
My intentions are
- to write a few words about the stitch, its history or my impressions of it.
- to illustrate the instructions in a photograph or drawing.
- to make a stitch sampler using a nice piece of Aida given by a friend Down Under.
- to set myself homework of using the stitch in a small sample project.
- to build up a reference chart, similar to the one I made for the TAST stitches.
So here is the start of my private
Sunday Stitch School
Lesson 1: Anundsjö Stitch
(To make a gentle start I'll begin with a stitch I have already talked a bit about in a
previous blog post.)
This is a traditional stitch from the northern province of Ångermanland in Sweden. Brita-Kajsa Karlsdotter is said to have created this stitch in her old age, maybe by mistake, (failing eyesight?). She was born in 1816, had 11 children and died at the age of 99. She had little time for embroidery until she became a widow. Her mother had earned a living embroidering bonnets, and Brita-Kajsa tried to recall how her mother had stitched, but she also created her own way of stitching.
Here is a link to her interesting story, unfortunately only in Swedish.
Updated infomation about the name
English: Swedish Split Stitch/ Detached Split Stitch
French: Point Fendu Scandinave
For Anundsjö Stitch two threads are used on the needle and the long stitch is split and fastened with a short stitch. This creates a slightly sprawling and charmingly untidy look.
Anundsjö Stitch if often found in local folk craft of Ångermanland and is traditionally worked in red or pink thread on white linen or cotton.
It seems to be a very forgiving stitch and perfect for me to begin with.
It starts like a split stitch, 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.
On my Aida sampler it looks like this:
The books I have referred to are:
Homework:
To stitch a small design in Karin Holmberg's 'Stitched In Scandinavia'.
