TAST 2 is fly stitch. I am much familiar with this stitch and have you used in some of my earlier projects. Fly stitch can be used for leaves. I tried using fly stitch for petals of the flower.
TAST 1 challenge is the chain stitch. Chain stitch is one of my favourite stitches, which I have been regularly using for more than a decade. It is simple and easy, follows the curves very well. Chain stitch can be used even as a filling stitch. There are many variations of chain stitch. The stitch comes out beautifully in perle cotton thread .
BEYOND TAST 1
This linked chain stitch and Beaded linked chain stitch are new stitches to me. Both were fun and easy to work with. I tried creating a beaded necklace with red perl cotton thread. :)-
I decided to take part in the 2020 TAST challenges being hosted by Sharon at pintangle. In the previous TAST runs, I was not following TAST stitches regularly. If some stitch fascinated me, then I would stitch, otherwise I just skipped them. I did not organise the stitched samplers properly , as a result , these samplers were lost when we had to relocate.
This year, I decided to take part in both TAST & BEYOND TAST stitch challenges and familiarise myself with the stitch beauties. I aim to keep them organised in a handmade fabric book , which can serve as a ready reckoner for designing embroideries and seam treatments. I am following this tutorial on Million Little stitches, to create the fabric books.
I have a good collection of Anchor stranded cotton floss in a variety of colors, very few DMC perl cotton 8 and perl cotton 5, good amount of plain fabric and few satin ribbons. I can easily manage TAST with these stash I already have.
I am excited with this learning of TAST this year. Good luck to me.
When I was in school, I read about Mridula's Embroidery School in a monthly magazine. I was fascinated towards embroidery reading that article. Few years back, my wish was fulfiilled. I got the correspondence course (which included a spiral bound book and 2 CDs) and the books remained untouched for a couple of years, waiting for their moment of shine. Some time back, I started watching the CDs and going through the book. Slowly, got absorbed in this beautiful form of embroidery.
Kutch embroidery originated in the state of Gujarat in India. There are two steps in each of the stitch. First part is the framing stitches and the second part is the interlacing of these framing stitches. The designs of Kutch work is entirely made using squares or diamonds.
To get started, I doodled the various kutch work motifs. My doodle cloth pictures are below.
Then I progressed, to the simple designs.
Then I moved on to the elaborate designs. The dual paisley design is worked on a navy blue cotton fabric.
The below small paisley design is worked on light pink satin fabric.
After a break of 6+ years I am back to blog about my adventures in embroidery. In these 6 years, I have done lots of embroidery including cross stitch, black work, kutch work , kamal kadai etc. stay tuned.
Here is my TAST 2021 sampler with this week's stitches.
