TAST 10/07/14 & First Messenger Bag Post 14

This week, I finished one stitch for Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST).

TAST #132: Kikos Flower

I completed this stitch using a milliner needle (to make the bullion knot easier) and size 8 pink Anchor perle cotton.  After stitching the flower petals, I stepped out of my comfort zone and used pearl beads (rather than clusters of the seed beads I feel drawn to) in the centers.

I used waste canvas to keep the stitching even.  I began in the center of the seam and ended up tearing my first flower out.  Without planning the distance for each petal, I ended up with 6 unevenly spaced petals.  So, I grabbed a scratch piece of graph paper and penciled in a four-petal flower.  I stitched that flower onto the center of the seam and was pleased with the result.  So, I counted how many spaces remained on each side of the waste canvas.  There were 30 squares on each side. Each flower took 6 spaces.  With 4 spaces in between, I was able to evenly space 3 more flowers on each side, creating a row of 7 flowers along the seam. 

This was a fun stitch.  I still need to work on making my bullion stitches even, but all things in time...

This seam was added to the 2nd panel of my first attempt at a messenger bag.  I felt the pink flowers with white centers would fit well with the flower beads on the topiary I added to this panel a while back.

I look forward to finishing up a few projects so I can dedicate more time to this one!

Thank you for stopping by.  I encourage you to stop by Pintangle to see the stitch Sharon introduced this week and to check out the links in the comments to see what others have created with TAST stitches this week.