kaytextiles: Diploma Module 4 Chapter 2 - Traditional Stitch Samples

My traditional stitch samples have been inserted into line drawings of slips of varying scales, postcard size. They are displayed in my sketchbook using transparent photo corners, as in a photo album, but here are shown individually in the order they appear in my sketchbook with the actual sketchbook pages shown at the end.

Traditional Stitches

4-30 Counted thread shape using water soluble 'canvas'. I used this as I didn't have any waste canvas. The tent stitch shapes created were outlined in black back stitch. The water soluble comes with holes. It was easy to use and dissolving the water soluble 'canvas' didn't distort the stitches.

4-31 Kantha shape II. Kantha is very flexible and can be stitched in many different ways. Having now stitched many kantha projects it remains one of my favourite techniques as is so portable. I stitched the leaves in two ways.

4-32 Kantha shape I

4-33 Speckled shape

4-34 Chain stitch filled shape

4-35 Long and short stitch solidly stitched shape with split stitch outline

4-36 Felt-padded shape solidly covered in satin stitch

4-37 Wired shape filled with single Brussels stitch and wire covered in buttonhole stitch

4-38 Needlelace shape in single Brussels stitch

4-39 'Slip' shape in tent stitch. The question was, how many stitches to the inch? I picked up a piece of fine linen for this sample and on completion realised I had 42 stitches to the inch. Jaqui Carey in her book Elizabethan Stitches suggests 'many of the opulent examples are so fine, with the linen equating to at least 35-count canvas' . Perhaps mine is rather extreme stitching (1764 stitches to the square inch) - with such fine linen there is no problem forming the curves on the pansy! Yes, it took hours!

4-40 'Flap' shape filled with Hollie Stitch. The petal is open at the top.

4-41 Pattern darned shape, with pattern darning in different directions

Stitches from North African Embroidery research

4-42 Astrakan Stitch

4-43 Eastern Stitch

4-44 Algerian Eye Stitch

4-45 Musabak Stitch and Turkish Triangular Stitch

These two stitches are show together here as they are both based on a triangular structure. However, the Turkish stitch is not pulled and the diagonal is worked last and is therefore dominant giving it a different appearance to the Musabak stitch which is worked in a frame and pulled tight, giving it a very different look. Mary Thomas describes Three-sided Stitch/Bermuda Faggoting/Lace Stitch/point turc/Turkish Stitch but she doesn't work it on the diagonal as it is done in Ottoman Embroidery - see Beginner's Guide to Ottoman Embroidery by Joyce I Ross - which is closer to the way of working this stitch in North African embroidery.