- - - Saturday Stitches - - -

Welcome to Saturday Stitches, where you watch me teach myself formal embroidery stitches.  : )  Here's the button if any bloggers want it:

and here is the URL to all Saturday Stitches posts.

First off, thanks everyone for getting as excited about my new work as I am!  It's literally pouring out.  I'm feeling pretty lucky right now.  I usually end my work by embellishing with hand stitches.  This week I tried out a few new ones:  Feather, Cretan, & Fly.

The Feather Stitch moves along pretty quickly.  You stitch diagonally up, and then diagonally down.  After working this out, it becomes pretty easy to know where the next stitches go because they all line up.  I managed to stitch it out pretty evenly if though it was not marked on my fabric.  I used two rows of this in a very organic manner on my arctic piece for Karen Ruane's course that I'm taking.  You can look back a few posts to find that.  I loved using it.  It creates diamonds when you line them up - and resembles a chain linked fence or fishing net.  See the white stitches over the bottom of the cheesecloth that sink down behind the strip of lace?

Next I tried out the Cretan Stitch.  It's done in a similar manner as the Feather Stitch I think.  The exception is that the stitches are vertical instead of diagonal.  I marked the dots to show you where I'm putting the needle, and where I am about to put it next.

Stitch down, then stitch up, continue along...

It reminds me of a zipper.  I thought the Cretan Stitch lends itself well to lacing.  It appears to be couched, doesn't it?  You lace a threaded needle though with the eye-end first.

I found a variation of the feather stitch that I thought I liked very much.  It really looks like plant stems I think.

Isn't that cool?  It's a very, very steep feather stitch where each stitch is done back further than a typical feather stitch.  It really looks like a plant to me, so added some Fly Stitches. These are similar to a feather, but you simply tack it down right away like you would with a Lazy Daisy.  Isn't this cute!?

awe...  : )

Have a lovely weekend everyone!