Saturday 30 April 2016

April Challenge - Hand Embroidery

Well March came and went and I didn't get around to setting a challenge and April has almost gone the same way!  Although I didn't post about it, my challenge to myself for April was to do some hand embroidery.  I've seen so many beautiful examples on Instagram and Pinterest, which inspired me to get some of my own embroidery done so I went back to TAST, which had fallen by the wayside.  I haven't achieved as much as I would have liked but at least I did something...

TAST 9 - Couching



I've never tried couching before.  After struggling for a while to figure out how to use it, I settled on using it to create some script.  I used some salmon pink mercerised cotton yarn (by Patons I think), couched down with gold thread.  To avoid having to stop and start I decided to mimic the way I would write the word, which involved doubling up the yarn in places.  The 'd' and the 'a' look a bit weird where I've doubled up the yarn side-by-side, but for the 'm' I went on top of the existing yarn and it's a much neater look.

TAST 10 - Running Stitch

For my first running stitch sampler I was inspired by Japanese Sashiko embroidery, which uses running stitch to create geometric patterns.  The resulting shapes traditionally have a symbolic meaning.  It is simplicity itself, but produces some really beautiful results.  My attempt is a far cry from the defined, precise stitching of traditional Sashiko, but in my defense I drew my pattern freehand so didn't have the benefit of super-straight lines.  That's my excuse anyway.


I thought it would be fun to try a freestyle, doodle type of thing as well.  On its own in a small hoop it looks like it could use some additional embellishment, but it might work better on a larger surface, like a cushion cover for example.
It was good to dig out the embroidery hoop and do some stitching.  For more information about TAST take a look at the Pin Tangle blog.