TAST-y Tuesday: Algerian and eyelet stitches
Caution! Cuidado! Vorsicht!
Stitcher cannot find little holes and count at the same time.
<------ SURPRISE!!!
I became so envious of the beautiful hand dyed backgrounds of Sharon's examples, I decided to have a go at it myself. This Aida cloth is my first attempt. I wetted the cloth, picked up a little color (a Jacquard fabric paint) on a damp sponge brush and stroked and blended as though I were doing a watercolor wash. I let it dry somewhat, then washed and rinsed. No color in the rinse. None on my hands! After 24 hours there was no color rubbing off, and since this mini sampler will only see journal use, I didn't bother heat setting. My intent was to use only eyelet variations, and I kept to that pretty much -- but that's part of the surprise!
I whip-stitched the border with a #3 (?) variegated cotton pearl I had on hand from a Swedish huck kit. Band 1 - The blue motifs are stitched with rayon floss. They are the same Algerian minus the lateral stitches; the difference is in the number and length of the up and down stitches. The pink eyelets inbetween are cotton floss, which I integrated into the blue motifs as single straight stitches or French knots. Oh, the latter was an afterthought, not part of
the surprise.
Filler row - Like the two motifs in the center row, these are just elongated, minimal-stitch eyelets done in 2 strands of DMC floss.
Band 2 - After completing this section which utilizes
Vicki Clayton's hand dyed silk floss, and after realizing no two eyelets were alike, I made a discovery in the negative space between the motifs. If I connected the gaps I would have a six-pointed star. SURPRISE! And lest my Eureka! go unnoticed, I added tiny seed bead centers, hoping to make the viewer's eye pause for a moment and "appreciate" my discovery. This was a design tip I learned from Sharon B.
Middle row fillers - the elongated eyelets were stitched in a variegated Anchor pearl, maybe #10 or #12. It comes in a ball as opposed to a skein, and I picked it up in a fabric store in New Zealand. The same thread is used in the V-formation toward the bottom.
Band 3 and/or 3 & 4 (there was a more distinct "bandwidth" before I started adding fillers)
I liked the effect of the light blue (#5 pearl), alternating halves of Algerian eyelets. My next row started to be the same thing in larger scale (and in purple floss). But then I wondered if this treatment could be made to wave or zigzag. Note how I overlapped the side pairs. I think this shows promise for a crisp geometric line. For symmetry's sake, I converted the middle half eyelet to a whole. I like the arrangement between the overlapped pairs, and I also think it gives a touch more variety from the light blue row above.
Bottom portion - the V formation was an attempt to show how eyelets could travel. The bottom corner eyelets looked like shiny rayon blobs, so I added beads . Now they're eyes instead of eyelets. Without having planned it, the big pink star pretty much dominates the lower portion of the piece. I suspect subconsciously I wanted to emphasize the stars I had discovered (I wonder if I can register and name them?). Anyway, I used straight stitches to get the outline.
It looked rather bare, so I added six more straight stitches to make an eyelet. I remember I was going to stitch small eyelets in the center of the star spaces in Band 2, but I was afraid that would clutter the space and diminish my surprise with too many competing minds.
If I hadn't been so hung up about stars and keeping to eyelets, I might have embellished more,
but I'm going to call this doodle done.
