TAST week 8 - the Fly Stitch

I really had fun with the Fly Stitch this week. My first sample is stitched on 25 count Dublin Linen and in the first column I started out with #5 perle in a pale yellow in an upright stitch. The next group is stitched with #5 rust with the stitch lying down, and then again in the upright with #8 perle in gold. The bottom three rows were all stitched with #8 in various ways. In the middle, the top leaf is in #5 perle and the bottom leaf in #8. I wanted to see the coverage difference in the thread weights. Don't you just live my Christmas tree? Turning my fabric upside down I began with a dark green #5 and then over-stitched in a light green #8 to give some 'natural' shading. I used #8 red perle for the Colonial Knot 'ornaments' and topped the tree with a gold star button attached with #5 gold perle thread.

This sampler is stitched on Salem Cloth and all the stitchings were done in Genny Thompson Flower Thread with the first one done as a whipped stitch. Reversing the colors I stitched an interlacing motif. I really just played around on this fabric. If the flower at the bottom had a tassel instead of a stem and leaves , I think it would make a pretty little fan. Other stitches in the flower motif include Straight, Back, Detached Chain and French Knots. You can see that I also used Detached Chain and Straight Stitch in the two larger designs.

Just to see how things looked on 14 count Aida, I repeated several of the same designs from the Salem cloth sampler but also made some changes in several of them. It is a little hard to tell, but the 'flower' on the top left is four Fly Stitches with three Colonial Knots for the center. I did other stitching this week but I'll share that later.