STITCH EXPLORE 09: MAY - NEEDLEWEAVING

If you refer to my previous post further down the page, you'll see that I completed the design I began with work in casalguidi. Here I've put the spin on it so you can see it in different rotations. Funny, while working on it, I thought the correct orientation had the two butterflies on the left, but I think I like it best with the butterflies at 12:00. The words are important only in that they indicate the months of the stitch exploration, although I did wrap "MAY".

I used two shades of Watercolours, regular cotton floss, and perle cottons in #5, #10 and #12.

The wheel began as a circle stitched with knotted buttonhole with spokes added evenly spaced from the center. I worked detached buttonhole around the inside of the circle and making a crescent shape on one side. From the center of the circle I wove with the same perle as the spokes, followed by two rows with watercolours. Next I wove three spokes together, then two sets of two wrapped spokes, 2 individually wrapped spokes, and finally two more spokes wrapped together that look like a continuation of the first three spokes. Five spokes remain bare but with the illusion of looking different lengths.

The first arc from the wheel has a foundation of parallel lines of backstitch (Watercolours). I used perle to wrap the two lines with a loop effect. The next arc begins with a line of barred chain, over which I worked surface coral stitch, knotting each of the underlying bars. Later I extended the line with regular coral stitch. The short arc is simply two rows of running stitch with the "bars" alternating. Then a second thread is woven .

I thought I was finished until I saw Sharon B's recent tutorial on weaving a picot and I had to try it right then. The closest stitchable thing was my April-May sampler segment. Cool. I thought I'd be stitching a cluster of leaves, but the angle of my second picot made me think of wings. I made two more and judged these butterfly/moth thingies deserved to stay on my doodle design by merit of their spontaneity and because they verify my use of words (remember, MAY is comprised of wrapped straight stitches). A few more fillers : tied crosses, French knots, eyelets.

Stitch Explore 09 - April: Casalguidi

Here is my effort at Casalguidi. It is just a sampling of some of the raised and pulled stitches. I enjoyed these and will probably add more. I went to a linen fabric for the pulled work, and it was a refreshing change from the red, white and blue on gray I had been using. Here, too, is proof that I do use a hoop on occasion.

I'm not certain, but the fabric may be Dublin. I began the long, meandering line by couching down a cotton yarn. I satin stitched over it with #8 perle, then did the over stitching with Caron Watercolours. Then I made more lines with buttonhole bars and detached buttonhole. I used plain buttonhole to stay stitch consistent and for flat contrast. I worked a few bullion knots because they were mentioned and because they are such fun to do. ;-)

For the pulled stitches I used #12 perle and worked part of the pattern provided in Carol's pulled stitch tutorial. From her whitework lessons I tried, I'm not sure how successfully, to make faggots with a #5 perle. These showed up better than the stitches done with #12. I think #8 or #10 would have been better choices; I didn't have any on hand but a few that would color clash.

You realize the above is just doodling. I'm sure there are many ways to vary these stitches . The whole time I was thinking how I might distort or make the stitches irregular, so I have some ideas I'll save for another playtime session.