Tag Archives: fly stitch

Hooray for Doodle Cloths

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(If you hummed the title, or even sang it to yourself in an Ethel Merman type of voice, you’re probably not in the first flush of youth; or you just love musicals smiley.)

Anyway, back to the point. Which is that Doodle Cloths are Awesome!

My current doodle cloth

45 minutes with one and I…

1) know how to do Quaker stitch – although it didn’t yet establish whether I actually like it better than its alternatives split stitch and stem stitch (of which it is a combination);

Quaker stitch compared to split stitch (left) and stem stitch (right) Quaker stitch compared to split stitch (top) and stem stitch (bottom)

2) have tried out a stitch I saw on one of my mother-in-law’s embroideries and which I’ve christened “fly stitch couching”, and played with the placement of the fly stitches which couch the long straight stitches;

Fly stitch couching

3) have got fairly confident with the stitch sequence of plaited braid stitch (although it’ll need quite a bit more practice to get it to look even); and

Plaited braid stitch in Wonderfil Fruitti

4) found out that crewel wool is not the ideal thread for plaited braid stitch!

Plaited braid stitch in Renaissance Dyeing crewel wool

And all this in well under an hour – pretty profitable use of stitching time, I’d say!

Of course I couldn’t leave it at that.

The doodle cloth, continued

Another half hour or so and I:

5) found out that floche does work well for plaited braid stitch (but that when I try to stitch it in a curve I get spiky bits sticking out – must work on that); and

Curved plaited braid stitch in floche

6) determined that split stitch (on the right) seems to take tightish curves just as well as Quaker stitch (on the left), and moreover that I don’t like the contrast in Quaker stitch between the look of straight lines and the look of curves (just in case it’s just me not getting it right I’ll try and find some close-ups of the Quaker Tapestry, for which it was designed).

Quaker stitch and split stitch lettering

Apart from having a personal tutor on standby whenever you need one, this must be one of the best ways of improving your stitching; and it’s fun, too smiley!

How a shisha clover changes

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I was getting on really well with the Shisha Clover. My order of working the various parts was not exactly as it will be in class, but that shouldn’t be a problem. On Monday evening I’d finished everything (including the clover outline) except for one part – an outer outline of fat, juicy French knots made with plump soft cotton to go between the top tear drop’s inner outline, and the clover outline. I’d done these before on other designs, and I like the look of them. They make a statement, they are bold. And when I’d stitched them the statement they made was “we’re too bold for this design”.

Don’t you just hate it when your stitches talk back to you?

Anyway, there was no help for it; they’d have to go. But what would the thing look like without them? I should really have been able to remember – after all, they’d only been there for ten minutes or so – but I couldn’t. And although I’d taken several progress pics, I hadn’t taken one at that particular stage. What if I took them out and then decided it did after all look better with them in? I turned to my photo editing program and a bit of digital French knot removal. The conclusion: with the French knots it looks fussy and cramped, without them it looks bare.

With French knots, or without?

My first idea was to take out the knots and re-do them in a thinner threads, closer to the purple wool outline. I wasn’t absolutely sure this would work, but surely it must be better than the big French knots. Foolishly, I decided to sleep on it. The result: red ghosting when the knots had been removed. And in places where it wouldn’t be covered. Help! By now desperation was setting in, so I created a little mild ghosting on a corner of the fabric and then dabbed it with bleach. This morning that ghosting had practically disappeared and the fabric had not disintegrated. It might still disintegrate in the long term, but I wasn’t too bothered by that right now, as long as it lasted until the workshop in November.

The ghosts of French knots

The overnight ghosting turned out to be more persistent, and of course there were the pencil dots of the transfer, but on the whole it worked out all right. Except for the bit where I got some bleach on the green outline and turned some of the hand-dyed cotton white… Fortunately I found a crayon in the right shade smiley.

The ghosts are getting fainter - but so is some of the colour

So it was time to stitch. I still wasn’t sure about using French knots of whatever size and was debating what to do when a friend on the Cross Stitch Forum mentioned that she preferred the big knots to the empty version because it sort of echoed the lacy edge of the bottom motif. Bingo! The bottom motif uses a fly stitch shisha variation, so why not use fly stitches in red coton à broder around the purple wool? Not all the way around, but in the same way as the left and right-hand motifs, and working the stitches in graduated size. And so I did. And it worked. Thank you Sally Squirrel for your brilliant suggestion.

Shisha Clover finished

And if you would like to stitch the Shisha Clover yourself, and you’re in the neighbourhood of Rugby on Saturday 14th November, do join me at the Percival Guildhouse day class.

Workshop kits

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Our dining room table is strewn with flowers. Shisha flowers, that is, as I’ve been experimenting with fabrics, threads, and stitches, not to mention mirrors, sequins, shells and silver card. Yes, I am trying to decide what to put in the workshop kit, and what exactly to stitch with those materials.

The threads are a fairly easy decision – I’ve been stitching most of my models in Anchor Multicolor perle #5, but for the kits I’ll probably use some skeins of DMC Variations that I’ve got in my stash and don’t use very often because there is no matching #8. The fabric is the next thing; blue cotton, lime green linen/cotton blend, or off-white silk dupion? Having just almost ruined a flower on dupion by ironing it too hot I am inclined to play it safe and go with one of the coloured fabrics; they are also less expensive (not unimportant when putting together kits for a charity workshop).

And which flower? The Cretan version uses less thread, looks nice and is quick to do, but the fly stitch version looks more floral. However, it might take too much time, especially as I will be using this design for a 90-minute workshop later this year, and I do think it’s important that the project can be finished or at least nearly finished within the time of the workshop – so much more encouraging than taking home something that’s barely been started. The yellow shell discs I got some weeks ago look nice, but some people might feel they are not really doing shisha embroidery unless it’s got a mirror. I could bring both and offer the option; the shell discs are a little bigger than the mirrors, but both just about work with the same size transfer.

Small shisha flower using Cretan stitch, on green fabric Small shisha flower using fly stitch, on blue fabric

Which brings me to size. And budget. I printed my little flower design in three sizes, to go with a 15mm, 18mm or 20mm mirror/sequin/shell. The smallest of the three fits snugly into Craft Creation’s small square aperture cards. The medium one, which I would need to use with the mirrors I’ve got, requires the card one size up. Which, unfortunately, is 50% more expensive. So ideally the design would use an 18mm mirror but be no bigger overall than the 15mm one. Using my photo editing program and the scanned design I enlarged and shrunk various bits and I think I’ve got a version that will work, although it may look too cramped with the shell discs. Watch this space!

Now, sequins – yes, I will definitely include the sequins. Options here are to attach them with holding stitches using stranded cotton, securing them with metallic petite beads, French knots, or standard seed beads in a contrasting colour. One thing to bear in mind is that my size 9 needle would only pass through about one in every three petite beads, so the size 7s definitely won’t stand a chance with them (I decided on 7s for the workshop as being a little less challenging to thread). I do like the look of those tiny beads, though, so perhaps I’ll just bring a few size 10s or beading needles to pass round the class (must remember needle threaders too).

Sequins attached with stranded cotton Sequins attached with metallic petite beads Sequins attached with French knots Sequins attached with contrasting beads

So far I’ve tried three different stitches for the scrolled stem: stem stitch, chain stitch (apologies for the example below, it’s not the most even chain stitch I’ve ever produced) and heavy chain stitch. I really like the look of the last one, but it’s probably a little too complicated for a two-hour workshop. Stem stitch may make an appearance in the leaf, so I think plain chain stitch will be the best choice.

The scrolled stem worked in stem stitch The scrolled stem worked in chain stitch The scrolled stem worked in heavy chain stitch

The leaf has been a great place to experiment, and I tried five different styles before finding the look I was after. Four of them I outlined, mostly in stem stitch, but one in backstitch. The necessity for this no doubt arose at least in part because my stitching wasn’t neat enough to produce tidy looking edges, so the outline made up for that. The first I tried was fishbone stitch, and I do like the look of it, but it does require more precise stitch placement than some of the others and takes a bit of time. Next I tried feather stitch, but that just looked rather haphazard. Fly stitch looked better, and I liked the line that formed down the centre of the leaf. Satin stitch can look great, but it needs to be done very accurately to get it to look its best, and I didn’t really take enough time over it. Finally I returned to fly stitch, but I worked it less densely, which had the advantage of being less time-consuming as well as producing a nice light look. It was also the only one that could stand on its own without outlining, even when worked rather quickly.

The leaf worked in fishbone stitch and stem stitch The leaf worked in feather stitch and backstitch The leaf worked in fly stitch and stem stitch The leaf worked in satin stitch and stem stitch The leaf worked in open fly stitch

So what’s it going to be? Blue cotton fabric (although I may use up the bit of lime green I’ve got left as well), Cretan stitch for the flower, chain stitch for the stem, open fly stitch for the leaf, and metallic petite beads to secure the sequins. And if I can get all these things to work with an 18mm mirror and the smallest design size, I’ll be well pleased!