TAST 50 - Inverted Feather Stitch

This is a new stitch for me .  I really enjoyed stitching this inverted feather stitch.  I just doodled this in 14 count aida with different floss like Perle cotton, Anchor floss and even cone threads available here in India.   Randomly I picked up the floss available in my ort jar and stitched this...

Embroidered Peacock - A drawstring bag

As a part of Red Work course at stitch map, I had to stitch a draw string bag to hold my pattern weights. I chose the peacock motif for this bag for two reasons  -

I wanted to choose one which were not stitched by any another stitch map member so far.
I have a huge peacock pattern with me for the past 2 years which I wanted to try out on a bed sheet sometime this year ( or next year).


Here is a close up picture of the peacock motif

I have used 2 ply of floss across the peacock. 

Peacock Body part	Stitch
Crest Tip	Detached chain / Lazy Daisy
Crest Lines	Back Stitch
Body outline and filling	Stem Stitch
Wings Outline	Chain Stitch
Wings Filling	Outline Stitch
Beak Filling and Outline	Fly Stitch
Legs	Fly Stitch
Feathers Outline	Chain Stitch
Feathers innerpart Outline	Whipped back Stitch
Eyes	French Knot (3 Wraps

I did not get it right and beautiful this peacock motif at the very first trial. I had to remove the stitches some 2 or 3 times, to get the right look.  Thanks to my mentor Anita .  She really encouraged and suggested me some tips to get this peacock right.

My initial version of the peacock was this above picture.  I managed to use only cool colors blue and green. This was kind of  very dull looking - especially the eyes done in light blue floss..

Anita suggested me to use black floss for the eye and to use a hint a bright yellow in the feathers.  The yellow contrast worked the magic in this peacock and it made the peacock little more lively.  I also wanted to do the legs in black as the light blue floss on a off white fabric made it very dull.

After this rework, my peacock looked like this

Again after this rework, we both were not satisfied.  I wanted to remove the light blue floss entirely and use black instead.  So, I removed those stitches and did it again with black crest lines, dark blue crest tip, dark blue beak with a hint of yellow in it.

After all these rework, this is my final peacock. I was finally satisfied with the outcome after making the changes Anita suggested. Thank You Anita.

Pattern Weights

As a part of stitch map Red Work course, I had done all these pattern weights. For the past two and half months I was completely into this Red Work Course and was focussing on completing it within the end date.  The Red Work course was a great course, which covered the very basics of embroidery - like how to wrap the hoop with the fabric, how to do knotless embroidery.  The stitches covered in this course were the basic stitches like - running stitch, back stitch, split stitch, outline stitch, stem stitch, seed stitch, feather stitch, chain stitch, detached chain stitch, blanket stitch .  I have also made a draw string bag to hold these pattern weights. More  on the embroidered draw string bag in a separate post soon.

TAST 40 - Beaded Hedebo Edge

Here is my trial on this edge.  This is a new stitch for me and it took me sometime to understand and try. I need more practice to perfect this edge.

Pachis work - Zippered Pouch

I have done a small zippered pouch with Pachis Work.  This was done as a part of Pachis Work Challenge announced here.  Its a great thought from Shari to try Pachis work in a Gingham fabric.

The tutorial for Pachis work can be found here. The tutorial for zippered pouch is here.  My phone snugly fits in this .

TAST 24 - Buttonhole Wheel

Here is my stitch sampler for buttonhole wheel..  I like this stitch and I have already used it before.

1) The center button wheel circumference is made of  seed beads.   I added two beads in the strings every time before picking the fabric from the centre.
2) The red button wheel is a simple ordinary initial trial
3) The dark green button wheel next to the red one has alternating button hole stitches varied in length.
4) The orange button wheel is worked initially and on the spikes created the ribbed spider wheel stitch is woven.  Care needs to be taken here as when we start weaving the circle formed is pushed to the front.  I had to stop weaving in the middle for this same reason.
5) The cream color button wheel next to orange is worked with the spikes apart and inbetween the spikes French knots are done.
6) The green color button wheel with the orange center is worked using woven spider wheel.
7) The pink color button wheel has it spikes made of bullion knots.  When the fabric is picked from the center to the circumference you wind the thread around the needle to make these bullion spikes.
8)The last Grey button wheel has chain stitches in the circumference.  After the fabric is picked from the center to the circumference and the thread pulled through , a small chain stitch is made in the circumference before proceeding.

TAST 22 - Knotted Cretan Stitch

I had a busy week and could not do much with this stitch.   It was easy as I had earlier done the Cretan stitch in  TAST.   I have combined the knotted cretan stitch with Mary Corbet's  Stitch Play .  

First, I stitched a row of Knotted Cretan stitch.  Then I took two different varigated orange and pale green Perl cotton threads and weaved them in the bottom straight line made by the Knotted Cretan Stitch.  Then I weaved the top straight line of Knotted Cretan Stitch with scarlet and dark green Perl cotton threads.

I should have placed my knotted cretan's near to each other, to get a better look of  this trial.