TAST Weeks 5-6

This post is a day later than I intended, but for fun reasons. :) The time I scheduled to blog last night was spent planning a vacation later this year with dear friends. 2018 has a lot of big milestones for our family and this trip will celebrate one of them.

Week 5: Herringbone Stitch

Inspired by the work of Annie Bowers on the Facebook TAST Group, I used the herringbone stitch as a filler on my tree. It was a fun idea that I would not have come up with myself.

The outline of the tree was added to my Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2018 February block with a stem stitch, but I did not like all of the open space. This was a great solution!

Week 6: Chain Stitch

This arched seam was created with size 12 black perle cotton and chain stitches.

First, I traced the arches from one of Sharon B.'s crazy quilt templates. (Regular readers may recall I received them in exchange for an honest review. I still love using them!)

Next, I whipped the chain stitch with a variegated pink size 8 perle cotton. 



Working with these stitches was so much fun, I kept playing!

Using another stencil, I marked the foundation fabric on the back of the block. 

I used these dots as guides to create another herringbone stitched seam.

On one side of the herringbone stitched seam, I added small bullion knots. Small fly stitches were placed beneath each bullion. These were all made with size 8 variegated pink perle cotton. Blue seed beads were added to the other side of the seam.

For the motif, I used another stencil from Sharon B. to trace a stem with 2 leaves.

Using size 8 green perle cotton, I chain stitched the stem.

Next, I whipped the chain stitches and couched the same thread around the shapes of the leaves. Herringbone stitches filled them in.

A pink lace flower that I purchased from Raviolee Dreams a couple of years ago inspired me to create the stem and leaves. I couched it onto the block with a matching strand of pink floss and filled the center with blue seed beads.

Thank you for stopping by!
Renee

TAST stands for Take a Stitch Tuesday. It is a personal challenge to learn a new embroidery stitch every week.

You may learn more about TAST here and find the Facebook group here.

CQJP stands for Crazy Quilt Journal Project. This is a personal challenge to complete a crazy quilt block each month that is at least 8-inches square. You may learn more about CQJP 2018 and see the beautiful blocks other participants have created here.