This is sword stitch for the tast challenge, done a bit irregular as a possible filling stitch. The sorbello-like stitches and the flower-like thing constructed from them are eastern stitch, yet another sorbello stitch variant.
Category Archives: tast
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.
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.
TAST II: Italian Knotted Border Stitch
This is my effort so far for this week’s TAST challenge, italian knotted border stitch.. In Germany it’s monday, so I’m kind of on time!
It is a really versatile stitch, you can do anything with it you can do with regular fly stitch, of which it is a variation.
Sorbello Stitch II
I played with sorbello stitch a lot on my sampler and want to share more of my experiences than a simple look at the sorbello section of my tast sampler will show.
Sorbello stitch as cross stitch surrogate
Firstly, I found an interesting blog post. At Vijis Craft There is a posting about using sorbello stitch in chicken scratch instead of cross stitches. An interesting idea that is probably worth trying, thank you Viji!
Generally Sorbello stitch can be used as a fancy replacement for cross stitch. To do this, make sure your stitches are exactly square and use a yarn that is covering the groud well. This is good for small and simple designs. Another thing that I still need to try is combining it with regular cross stitch.
Working sorbello stitch to and fro
Sorbello stitch has a direction, for an orderly look you need to carry the yarn back to the start on the wrong side and always work all stitches in a piece in the same direction, execpt when you consciously play with the difference.
When you have to do many rows this will get annoying. Here I show you a way to work it to and fro.
Sorry the bad oictures, they were taken on the train. I hope you still get how the stitch is done.
This is how the classical sorbello stitch is done:
And this is the reverse one for the back rows:
TAST2 – Three more stitches
So I’m back. Maybe I will post some pics as a prove sometime this week.
Well, I did do some stitching, this is the section of my sampler showing knotted loop stitch, portugese border stitch and knotted buttonhole stitch together with a few other knotted stitches.
Procrastination and TAST 2
Now I’ve spent my time choosing and configuring a new theme instead of whipping up a proper blog post. Me bad.
Also, I’m behind with Sharon B’s challenge, which has barely begun. Here are a few pics of what little I did for it.
Here I just practiced knotted diamond stitch.
Next, I worked it over satin stitches, this was not too successful because it doesn’t hold them down very good.
Jet another sampler
Here is one more nearly finished sampler of mine. It is really just a doodle cloth on which I tried out some tast stitches when I had no time to explore them in a real project. I have shown details of it before, but never the whole piece, so here it is. It was done on jute fabric in a somwhat garrish colour scheme, but I do intend to finish it. It has a few really interesting half chevron stitch variants, I will probably mainly keep it for reference rather than for any inherent qualities of the piece.
Creative use of gesso
Another one of my christmass presents was a pot of gesso. I have seen some people online prime their embroideries with gesso and then paint on them wit varying techniques. I decided to use acrylic paints because I have some experience with them. I used my tast sample of pekinese stitch and thorn stitch. . I’m not sure if I’ll leave this one as is or work on it some more. This is just a tryout piece that doesn’t mean anything, but I’m sure I’m going to use this technique for more serious stuff when the opportunity arrises.
New and old challenges
I’m sorry, there are still no updates on my embroidery, because I haven’t done any. There’s a lot going on in my life right now, maybe I’ll be able to tell you more in a few days or weeks, so I’m busy. Also, christmass and a few birthdays are looming, and everybody has knitted stuff on their wishlist. Stangely, no one ever wants something really creative for christmass. So I’m knitting until my fingers get sore, just like every year. Of course, I cannot really show these before christmass, so this place will be a bit empty until then.
Sharon Bogon, who was running the tast challenge, will launch another challenge on January first, which again will last one year. it is called the Take it Further Challenge and will be about design rather than about the stitches themselves . I have already signed up, and hope that everything will have calmed down a bit for me by then, so that I can participate in a meaningful way. The fact that it is a monthly challenge will surely make it easier.
Sharon has already posted a list of participants, it is here . As far as I know you can still sign up for it. I hope to read something from many of my readers and other tast participants next year. Of course you can take part if you haven’t been taking part in tast.
Tenar's cave 