Stitch Sampling

This article from TextileArtist.org is a nice read if you have ever wondered about the value of sampling stitches or techniques before you start a project.

Sampling can be addictive.  It's all about the "What ifs" that keep popping up as you try one thing, then make some small alteration to the process or color or thread weight and try it again.  Even better is when you let one idea link to another and another . . .

The reward of all this curiosity spread across small pieces of fabric is that the samples are making your own encyclopedia of stitch and technique ideas as they begin to fill a box or a bin.  Notebooks with cloth pages (the holes are made with buttonholes) hold mine.  I've even used Pellon as a page, which keeps the pages from folding over in the thick binders.

If you searched the dark corners of your own studio space, how many samples could you collect?  Enough to fill your own ring-binder notebook?  Maybe two notebooks?  My favorite ones are where I start out a little loose and not so nice, but as the stitching continues, I can see the improvement I make.  Seeing where you came from is often a great teacher.  And mistakes might be the best teacher of all, because we learn more from mistakes than doing things perfectly the first time.

Don't forget other fabric techniques-- Felting experiments can lead to a new direction in wet or dry felting.  Fabric manipulation gives texture, whether perfectly or imperfectly worked.  What about painted Lutradur or Bond-A-Web, heat-manipulated surfaces . . .

Take a moment to read the article about sampling as a creative process.  It might be the impetus you need to start your next project!

ATCs and Buttonhole Stitches

I have a "collection" of new ATCs.  First, maybe I should define "collection."  When I was a little girl, one item made a collection.  By my mid-twenties, it had to be three of something to rate the collection title.  Today, it has to be so many of something that it becomes a serious impediment to progress, either in walking across a room or in visually sweeping a work table— at which point I start questioning whether there is room in a down-sized life for a collection of anything anymore.

I will call this stitched group a series rather than a collection, though.  Next month at Freestyle in Knoxville, I am to do a small study on Buttonhole Stitch variations, and I did some serious head-scratching to think of new ways to present old material.  I have stacks and stacks of Buttonhole Stitch samplers already (it is, after all, the beauty and variety of the stitch that interests me, not their application in serious work!).  So, I chose to make my illustration sampler in pieces rather than to stitch a new single cloth.  Then, one for each of my friends, and I can be excused from the charge of over-collecting!

In addition, I have used my hand-carved stamps to provide a little background chatter for the pieces.  Solid fabric can be boring.  On the other hand, fabric that is too decorative shouts above the stitching.  So, the pale-ink stamps seem to work well in that middle ground for me.

Following are some of the Buttonhole Stitch ATCs.  The stitch is beyond versatile, so completely flexible and offering arms and legs that can flail out or be tucked in, even laid over and under one another-- what a delightful group of stitches to play with!

First are some Buttonhole Cousins at Play:  Sitting on Church Pews.    This is about as straight as I ever want to get with lines of stitches.

The next ones are the Buttonhole Cousins truly at play--the ones from the Church Pews, but now that they've been excused, they are cavorting in the sunlight!

One of my favorite ways to use Buttonhole Stitches is to create double lines, with only a tiny space between them.

They undulate beautifully:

The stitch works nicely as an appliqué edge, below holding the painted and stamped cotton in place against the silk ground.  And the pockets in the stitch make wonderful places to slip little beads, just for sparkle!

Here is a ruin (rather Roman, don't you think?) that irregularly stitched and interlinked lines have made:

Enjoy!  The Buttonhole stitch, paired with imagination and humor, is really fun.  No straight lines, please.  Give it a chance to dance, run, turn cartwheels . . .

Composite Stitches: Mountmellick

A composite embroidery stitch is one in which there are several steps to finishing it, often involving some part of more than one stitch.  These stitches can sometime be more complicated than the "backbone" stitches, i.e., the chains, buttonholes, and flat stitches that are heart an soul of embroidery basics, but the composite stitches are certainly worth the little bit of extra trouble.  In addition, the more steps involved in making a stitch,  the more opportunities there are for stitch variation, which is my first love.

Mountmellick Stitch is one of these composite stitches.  You may read about the history as well as the traditional thread and fabric choices here  and a video tutorial is available.  The steps are also well-illustrated in Erica Wilson's classic work, Erica Wilson's Embroidery Book, first published in 1973.  Although the video tutorial is very helpful, my personal choice is always the diagram, because I can poke along at my own pace with a drawing until I "get it right."

This is the diagram of Mountmellick Stitch that Erica Wilson provides:

Although it is traditionally a highly textured whitework stitch, it is more interesting when worked in color.  Mountmellick thread is not readily available locally for me— I have a small amount left from a purchase years ago, and it resembles a flat matte cotton by DMC (Cotton broderie 4, or a soft, tapestry-weight cotton).  But there is a web site (Canadian) that offers it in all four weights  Check it out here . A lighter-weight version of this matte cotton is sold by Rainbow Gallery (Matte 18), in colors as well as white.  A heavy-weight filet lace thread would also work.  Perle cotton (sizes 3 and 5 are nice) or a heavy mercerized cotton (such as Rainbow Gallery's Overture, which is variegated) are other choices.  The heavier the thread, the larger and more textured the stitch will be.  Multiple strands of cotton floss or flower thread do not work as well as a single, heavier thread.  Lighter weights of thread do not show off the details of the stitch very well.  And, of course, the traditional stitch would have been worked in white, not color.

Below are some columns of Mountmellick Stitch that show, from left to right, the traditional stitch (with the leg elongated), and successive additions of legs, 2, 3, 4, and 5.  This stitch lends itself to the interesting variation of adding more than one little "leg" to the stitch. These are stitched in tapestry cotton:

It can also be flipped and worked in mirror image (here I had to grit my teeth and think in reverse, no small feat for me):

Because it curves well, it is an useful stitch to use in floral designs or in borders.  It is a very dense, heavy stitch, and plays well with other textured stitches.

Here I've played with it, stitching a closed form with it:

and substituting a Bullion Stitch for the last step of the stitch:

My stitches are much larger and more clumsy-looking than the proficient Irish stitcher ever intended hers to be, but it suits my style better than tiny, neat stitches would.  Hence the heavier thread.

Although the fabric most associated with it is a tightly-woven cotton satin, I prefer a looser weave of linen.  The linen fabric holds this stitch very well, and seems to make room for the bulk the stitch, where a tighter weave of fabric often has a strained look when it is finished.  Tighter weaves also stress the heavier threads as they are pulled repeatedly through it.

I am glad to see Mountmellick embroidery enjoying a revival of interest.  It is a lovely addition to our list of textured stitches.