Friday, January 6, 2012

TAST - Fly Stitch

I've been having a hard time figuring out how I was going to use TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday). I wanted a sampler of some sort, but not too formal and not too informal either. I didn't want to just do a length of fabric with stitches. I'd probably roll it up and put it away. I didn't want to do 52 separate projects either.

I finally decided it will be a book with separate pages. The fabric I'm using is 28 count evenweave that I bought a long time ago. I got 1 1/2 yard on sale once. This page is 8 inches square but I've stitched off a 1" boundary all around. All the pages will have this 1" boundary. I do better with boundaries! In this case, I've also divided it into 4 segments but that may not always be the case. This one is for the Fly Stitch and I already plan to follow some of Sharon's suggestions and try it several ways - different thread and with variations. There will be at least 4 samples and maybe more. She has also suggested using different fabrics. I may do a small sample on another fabric and then stitch it to the page in some cases. We'll see. I'm kind of making it up as I go. I expect the 1" outer boundary to be somehow finished later. I'm not especially concerned about it right now.

Here is my finished page. I tried to do several variations as Sharon suggested. My favorites are the leaves and the ones with beads. Adding beads is tedious but I did get faster with it as I went on. Originally I thought they were added at the same time the stitch was made, but I figured out they were added afterwards. I only have one needle small enough to allow seed beads to pass over the eye so I put a few beads on the thread before I put it back in the pincushion to mark it.

I see lots of possibilities with the reverse fly stitch (bottom left). You can barely see it here but the red thread bled a bit when I damp stretched the piece. I was surprised as it's tatting thread which is supposed to be colorfast. I noticed the black pearl cotton that I used to divide the page into quarters left a tidge of color too. I wonder if it has anything to do with the evenweave fabric? The blue pearl cotton didn't bleed.

I used pearl cotton in size 8, 2 colors of 1 strand each embroidery floss, tatting cotton in size 20, tatting cotton sizes 40 and 50, and the top leaves were done in 2 strands of the same color embroidery floss.

I used the right hand bottom quarter to stitch the elements I liked the best in a sort of decorative format, as if I were really using the stitch on a project. I may not do that all of the time but I like the idea of doing it. I hope I can keep up with this project!

4 comments:

deanna7trees said...

love your variations. i had a crazy quilt block that never got stitched so that's where i started.

Rose Mary said...

Love all your stitches. I think you did a great job. I also am going to make a book, still have not decided what it will look like.

Bree at "Bree's Way" said...

I love your sample Gina, and I too will be adding some plain samples to my little book, I want to just have fun with my little book and thought this would be the best way. I like how you are leaving your book open to finish later and just playing with each page as it comes, to me that makes it interesting to see how it develops. I am excited to see how yours comes out.

Really nice stitches :)

My Creative House said...

Gina the stitching on your sampler are so beautifully made, thanks for sweet comment on my blog.
Anni