Stitchonary No 7: Woven Stitch

Craft YourSelf Silly Stitchonaries

No 7. Woven Stitch

Stitchonaries are the modern day sampler, they're great for both beginners to learn with and for experienced embroiderers to practice on...and if i'm honest I've been embroidering for nearly 40 years now and they've featured stitches i didn't know and have enjoyed learning. there are 6 project pages as well as the front cover and a patterned back that you can embellish as you choose. They come as a complete panel and instructions on how to fold it into a floppy book, I've then taken that a step further and inserted card to stiffen the pages.

I would also recommend you invest in a heat erasable pen so you can draw any changes onto the page, stitch them and then iron away your lines. The Stranded Cotton used in these projects are from Marathon threads and available in a gorgeous range of colours at a very reasonable price...a great way to start building your embroidery stash.

In these Blogs i will take you through the stitchonaries one at a time and page by page to tell you what i have done and why. But i cant recommend them highly enough and they look awesome when finished too.

interested? check out the Craft yourself Silly Site or Hochanda.

No 7. Woven Stitch

Woven stitches are fantastic fillers and ways to add texture, and they're fun. As always this stitchonary will make a great reference manual for future use.

I went to town on my little goldfish as you can see and gave him some shiny water to swim in courtesy of the Cosmic Shimmer fabric paints.

I always take the time to neatly stitch in the text as it looks very effective, this can be done at any stage of the project and like any page you don't have to complete it in one go...although each page/project is small enough that there isn't really time to get bored or stressed and they look awesome when done.

Oval stitch, a basic way to weave a set of flowers....i've used my inktense pencils to ground the flowers and colour the sky and stem stitch for the stems...i've mixed threads to create different colour blends.

This is a great page for trying out different thread thicknesses, thread types, weave angles and combinations....Have fun and create a great reference page.

Bees, each one is woven slightly differently using the different weaves practiced on the previous page, the honeycombs are coloured with a combination of inktense pencils and Cosmic Shimmer Fabric Paints

Picot stitch was one of those stitches i avoided for years as it seemed more complicated than it actually is, i had great fun playing on this page and coloured the bird with Cosmic Shimmer Fabric Paints.

Another new stitch for me, but i had alot of fun playing with it as you can see. 

Again i played with this one, a little light background colour and a woven leaf completed the apple and of course, as always ive labelled my stitches so i can refer back to them.

The back page is a great opportunity to play with the stitches learnt throughout the stitchonary.  I went a little crazy with this one but had so much fun doing it.

Next up is No 8. Cut Work

Stitchonary No 6. Feather Stitch

Craft YourSelf Silly Stitchonaries

No 6. Feather Stitch

Stitchonaries are the modern day sampler, they're great for both beginners to learn with and for experienced embroiderers to practice on...and if i'm honest I've been embroidering for nearly 40 years now and they've featured stitches i didn't know and have enjoyed learning. there are 6 project pages as well as the front cover and a patterned back that you can embellish as you choose. They come as a complete panel and instructions on how to fold it into a floppy book, I've then taken that a step further and inserted card to stiffen the pages.

I would also recommend you invest in a heat erasable pen so you can draw any changes onto the page, stitch them and then iron away your lines. The Stranded Cotton used in these projects are from Marathon threads and available in a gorgeous range of colours at a very reasonable price...a great way to start building your embroidery stash.

In these Blogs i will take you through the stitchonaries one at a time and page by page to tell you what i have done and why. But i cant recommend them highly enough and they look awesome when finished too.

interested? check out the Craft yourself Silly Site or Hochanda.

No 6. Feather Stitch

Feather stitch is a fantastic stitch for working floral images ir trees etc. and along with the other stitches to learn in this stitchonary, its fun to play with as well. This stitchonary is the beginning of expanding your embroidery reportoire and as you can see from the cover of this one, i got a little carried away i was having so much fun.

I always take the time to neatly stitch in the text as it looks very effective, this can be done at any stage of the project and like any page you don't have to complete it in one go...although each page/project is small enough that there isn't really time to get bored or stressed and they look awesome when done.

Feather stitch practice, try different lengths of stitch and angles, play and get comfortable.

This is a great page for practicing turning corners and stitching in the round.....on your page you will see you only have 2 ovals, I've added a third to mine to see how it looks worked in a tight area. 

Fly stitch tree, and a little background colour added with inktense pencils.

Weirdly i struggled a little with quill stitch, as you can see, it was a new stitch to me and one i am resolved to practice more as its a fun variation.

Cretan stitch with different numbers of strands on the needle to see the effect the thicknesses had on the peice. One of my favourites i think

Again i played with thread thicknesses and i used my heat erasable pens to mark guidelines to stitch too so it looks neat. note that i have listed thread thicknesses where necessary on each page.

The back page is a great opportunity to play with the stitches learnt throughout the stitchonary. I have added extra colour with Cosmic Shimmer fabric paints.

Next up is No 7. Woven Stitch

Stitchonaries No 5. Satin Stitch

Craft YourSelf Silly Stitchonaries

No 5. Satin Stitch

Stitchonaries are the modern day sampler, they're great for both beginners to learn with and for experienced embroiderers to practice on...and if i'm honest I've been embroidering for nearly 40 years now and they've featured stitches i didn't know and have enjoyed learning. there are 6 project pages as well as the front cover and a patterned back that you can embellish as you choose. They come as a complete panel and instructions on how to fold it into a floppy book, I've then taken that a step further and inserted card to stiffen the pages.

I would also recommend you invest in a heat erasable pen so you can draw any changes onto the page, stitch them and then iron away your lines. The Stranded Cotton used in these projects are from Marathon threads and available in a gorgeous range of colours at a very reasonable price...a great way to start building your embroidery stash.

In these Blogs i will take you through the stitchonaries one at a time and page by page to tell you what i have done and why. But i cant recommend them highly enough and they look awesome when finished too.

interested? check out the Craft yourself Silly Site or Hochanda.

No 5. Satin Stitch

I always take the time to neatly stitch in the text as it looks very effective, this can be done at any stage of the project and like any page you don't have to complete it in one go...although each page/project is small enough that there isn't really time to get bored or stressed and they look awesome when done.

Satin Stitch is one of my favourite stitches and i always find it helps to mark where i want a colour to go before i stitch...i also love colour blending...so much fun.

This Page is fantastic for practicing with different thread angles and thicknesses ...the roman numerals indicate thread thicknesses

This is a great page for practicing turning corners and stitching in the round.....when i stitch things like this i find it helps to mark increments around the area with the heat erasable pen, this way your stitches turn slowly and don't make sudden jumps that stand out on a finished piece.

Here we practice stitching in different directions on one piece to create the form of the fish, again i used my heat erasable pen to draw in the line where the stitch angle changed.....Background colour is a wash of Cosmic Shimmer Fabric Paint.

Playing using satin stitch in various different ways to create different effects.

To Create the background on this page I used the same paint as i did on the Koi Page..to mark the lines where i wanted the colour to change on the feather i used my heat erasable pen and stitched to those lines.

Raised Satin stitch...simple and effective and I have grounded the flowers with lines of Inktense Pencils.

The back page is a great opportunity to play with the stitches learnt throughout the stitchonary. I have added extra colour with Cosmic Shimmer fabric paints.

Next up is No 6. Feather Stitch

Stitchonaries No 4. Knots

Craft YourSelf Silly Stitchonaries

No 4. Knots

Stitchonaries are the modern day sampler, they're great for both beginners to learn with and for experienced embroiderers to practice on...and if i'm honest i've been embroidering for nearly 40 years now and they've featured stitches i didn't know and have enjoyed learning. there are 6 project pages as well as the front cover and a patterned back that you can embellish as you choose. They come as a complete panel and instructions on how to fold it into a floppy book, i've then taken that a step further and inserted card to stiffen the pages.

I would also recommend you invest in a heat erasable pen so you can draw any changes onto the page, stitch them and then iron away your lines.

In these Blogs i will take you through the stitchonaries one at a time and page by page to tell you what i have done and why. But i cant recommend them highly enough and they look awesome when finished too.

interested? check out the Craft yourself Silly Site or Hochanda.

No 4. Knots

I always take the time to neatly stitch in the text as it looks very effective, this can be done at any stage of the project and like any page you don't have to complete it in one go...although each page/project is small enough that there isn't really time to get bored or stressed and they look awesome when done.

Have fun decorating the butterfly with the knots learnt in this stitchonary, Cosmic shimmer paint added a nice touch I think

This is the page that inspired me to start with the stitchonaries, when you get it the sheep look like they are floating...a little inktense pencil, and a few running stitches and they're happily grounded. I also used whipped running stitch to outline the hills and  single running stitches for the trees and legs.

apart from adding the name of the stitch, this page was copied directly from the instructions...with a little cosmic shimmer fabric paint, just because i could.

Bullion Knots, these were once my Bete Noir, thankfully the pages are small enough that the practice is easy, again i have named the stitch and showed thread numbers.

As you can see ive nailed bullion knots...love them now, the leaves i added myself, the background is a soft inktense wash and the stems are stitched with whipped running stitch.

Bullion Roses are fun, this page is a great way to practice different colour combinations. The leaves i added myself using a stitch i learnt in the chain stitch stitchonary.

Once again, apart from naming the technique this is direct from the instructions, all i will say is be wary of your tension, keep it even or they will become messy.

The back page is a great opportunity to play with the stitches learnt throughout the stitchonary. I have added extra colour with Cosmic Shimmer fabric paints and simply outlined the bubbles with back stitch. The stem stitch i have used to outline the Sea Horse with hasn't been learnt in the stitchonaries (Intermediate Running stitch is yet to come in these blogs) a simple back stitch would look just as nice.

Next up is No 5. Satin Stitch

Stitchonaries No 3 Blanket Stitch

Craft YourSelf Silly Stitchonaries

No 3. Blanket Stitch

Stitchonaries are the modern day sampler, they're great for both beginners to learn with and for experienced embroiderers to practice on...and if i'm honest i've been embroidering for nearly 40 years now and they've featured stitches i didn't know and have enjoyed learning. there are 6 project pages as well as the front cover and a patterned back that you can embellish as you choose. They come as a complete panel and instructions on how to fold it into a floppy book, i've then taken that a step further and inserted card to stiffen the pages.

I would also recommend you invest in a heat erasable pen so you can draw any changes onto the page, stitch them and then iron away your lines.

In these Blogs i will take you through the stitchonaries one at a time and page by page to tell you what i have done and why. But i cant recommend them highly enough and they look awesome when finished too.

interested? check out the Craft yourself Silly Site or Hochanda.

No 3. Blanket Stitch

I always take the time to neatly stitch in the text as it looks very effective, this can be done at any stage of the project and like any page you don't have to complete it in one go...although each page/project is small enough that there isn't really time to get bored or stressed and they look awesome when done.

The leaf i cut from felt and blanket stitched , with wrapped running stitch for the veins.

On this page we learn the basics of blanket stitch, turning circles and angles and for fun I coloured the images with Cosmic Shimmer Fabric Paint

The letters were cut from felt and appliqued with blanket stitch.

Crown of thorns - On Competing the first swirl I added another to try out the two variations od stitches.....Background colour is a wash of Inktense pencils.

Two hearts were printed on this page...to me they seemed lonely so I added more, you don't have to do this, I enjoyed the stitching so much i couldn't resist adding more.

To Create the background on this page I used a variety of coloured organza, because I used a heat erasable pen to make additions to the page, when I heated it to remove it, some of the organza melted....an interested effect, even if unintentional...I have since used the same technique deliberately with great effect on another stitch project.

Shisha Mirrors, Blanket stitch is one of the ways of fixing shapes and cut-outs to a page, as you can see, some of the circles are reflective and some are hand marbled pieces.

The back page is a great opportunity to play with the stitches learnt throughout the stitchonary. I have added extra colour with Cosmic Shimmer fabric paints.

Next up is No 4. Knots Stitch

Stitchonaries No 2. Chain Stitch

Craft YourSelf Silly Stitchonaries

No 2. Chain Stitch

Stitchonaries are the modern day sampler, they're great for both beginners to learn with and for experienced embroiderers to practice on...and if i'm honest i've been embroidering for nearly 40 years now and they've featured stitches i didn't know and have enjoyed learning. there are 6 project pages as well as the front cover and a patterned back that you can embellish as you choose. They come as a complete panel and instructions on how to fold it into a floppy book, i've then taken that a step further and inserted card to stiffen the pages.

I would also recommend you invest in a heat erasable pen so you can draw any changes onto the page, stitch them and then iron away your lines.

In these Blogs i will take you through the stitchonaries one at a time and page by page to tell you what i have done and why. But i cant recommend them highly enough and they look awesome when finished too.

interested? check out the Craft yourself Silly Site or Hochanda.

And onwards with No 2. Chain Stitch

I always take the time to neatly stitch in the text as it looks very effective, this can be done at any stage of the project and like any page you don't have to complete it in one go...although each page/project is small enough that there isn't really time to get bored or stressed and they look awesome when done.

The Star is painted with Cosmic Shimmer fabric Paints and then i have embroidered around the edge using one of the stitches learnt in the panel.

On this page we learn the basics of chain stitch...I have added notes to show which stitches are which so that when i refer back i can see the differences

Practicing Chainstitch and writing, i have added the numerics myself in the blank space provided to show how chain stitch works with different thread thicknesses.

Background is coloured with watered down cosmic shimmer paints, text added to identify the stitch. This piece could also be worked as lavender simply by changing the colours.

This page i followed directly from the instructions provided.

Ok so i  went a little mad with this one, the vase is coloured with cosmic shimmer fabric paints and some watered down cosmic shimmer provides a background...all the foliage and buds i added myself and i think that you can go as mad as you like to create your own individual vase as these mini projects are very freeing and open to personal interpretation.

background is provided by a scrap of organza and the clock is done very delicately with two strands of white thread

The back page is a great opportunity to play with the stitches learnt throughout the stitchonary. for this one i have used thread thickness to create distance...the green leaves are 3 strands, the tree four strands and the fallen leaves are six strands, the tree trunks are created with wrapped running stitch from the 1st stitchonary (Running Stitch).

Next up is No 3. Blanket Stitch