TAST Catchup: Raised Herringbone Band

I did a little bit of catch up, here is the raised herringbone band stitch of the TAST challenge.

I was not impressed with my first trial, mainly because 6 strands of normal stranded cotton thread is not quite enough to give good coverage on my aida fabric. So the stitch looks somewhat ragged.

For my next trial, I did long stitches spanning all along the band, then covered them with the smaller stitches the original pattern calls for. As you can see, this creates better coverage and imho also makes the herringbone band sits better on the slightly raised stitches.

I did the same for the third and last sample of the stitch. I also wrapped the herringbone stitches differently for a chance. I quite like this variant.

Stacked Sorbello Stitch

Oh yeah, yet another sorbello Variant! Play with it and enjoy! Kudos go to Sharon Bogon, her tast challenge was my inspiration for playing arround with sorbello stitch.

This variant is worked in columns top down, for rows just turn the fabric.
Start with a sorbello stitch like shown. the legs of the stitch should be long and stick out to the sides.

The straight stitch in which the next sorbello stitch is anchored is worked over the legs of the first stitch. It should be as long as the first straight stitch.

A row of stacked sorbello stitch. Of course the legs can be shorter to stick out less.

This Flower Made my Day

Cannot even say why, but seeing this yucca flower in a roadside ornamental planting made my day. Did you know they grow for years, the bloom once in such splendour then die? Of course, there are always young ones who remain.

Connected Sorbello Stitches

This is another Sorbello variant I explain in detail because it might be hard to figure out. I was inspired by the tast challenge to play arround with it.

I think you can do connected sorbello stitches following the same principles in other arrangements, anybody up to experiments?

I think the pics are self-explanatory on this one. Sorry their bad quality, they were taken on the train to work.

This is a row of a finished stitch.

False Sorbello Stitch

Sorbello stitch really is a very versatile one. It sparked my imagination so much that I decided to explore it further and neglect the next stitches of the tast challenge somewhat in order to find time for that. I did say I won’t get stressed out about the challenge this year.

Many of the things I did are obvious on my sampler, I think those which are not will be shared in detail.

I’m calling this false Sorbello because it is done like sorbello but doesn’t look like it. If anybody knows this stitch by any other name please tell me.

You work this in columns top down, for rows just turn the fabric. Start the column with a regular sorbello stitch. Then do the next sorbello stitch like a normal sorbello stitch, just don’t do the straight stitch you would do as the beginning of a normal sorbello stitch. anchor the next knot in the “legs” of the first sorbello stitch.

Please note that the legs should be about half as long as shown for an orderly result, but that would have made it hard to figure out how to do the stitch.

The next knot is again anchored in the legs of the previous one. Work the stitches as close together as possible to get a rope-like line. I have tried it more spaced it didn’t really look good.

The last pic shows a row of it closeup. Note that the “rope” the stitch forms is two-sided, experiment with orientation before using it on a real project.

The Next Sampler Section

Here is a section of my tast challenge sampler. It is the last part I have so far, and finished, I think. Other postings will follow that show a few details and explain a few things.

At Germany we have a heat wave with temperatures up to 40 degree celsius, this is almost too much even for me, although I love heat. Work is also extra busy because I’ll be on vacation soon. I hope I’ll still manage to do a few post-worthy things.

Pinus strobus sketch

What the title says. Again done on a short break while inline skating. I do feel I’m getting better.