Sunday, January 21, 2007

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Detached Chain Stitch

This week's stitch for TAST was detached chain stitch, or lazy daisy stitch. It lends itself to petals, flowers and leaves I think. After mulling over a few ideas I decided to have a go at working with a converted image I've got of a double petalled gerbera - here...



Lordy, little did I realise what an ambitious project I'd set up for myself. It took hours and hours and hours! But I'm pleased with how it turned out, and it's been stitched entirely in detached chain stitch. With hindsight, I should have stitched a smaller flower, this one is about 5 inches across. I found the threads a bit difficult to keep straight on the petals as they were so long.



I started out by fusing a circle of fabric for the centre of the flower. I mulled over the idea of loads of french knots for the centre, thank goodness I didn't or else I'd still be stitching days from now! I pencilled in a few petals to use as guidelines. Then it was a case of filling in the petals with stitches, changing the colours to give depth and variety. I had to hook the outer thread of some of the larger petals around the neighbouring petal as they tended to go all skinny because of the length - does that make sense? It was hard to stop the long stitches from just flopping over the top of each other. I'm not sure how stable the stitching will be in the future, whether the stitches will shift with movement of the fabric. I've learned something anyway, there is a limit to how long a stitch should be!




When I finished the large petals, I added a smaller ring of petals in a lighter colour, which helped to stabilise the long threads behind. Then I added a row of smaller stitches from the opposite direction, and scattered a few little beads. I'm very happy with this central stitching, it gave the effect I was intending it to.

I'm pleased to report that this week that I didn't lose the plot or my mind at all, I was calm and methodical and unstressed. :-) I had fiddled with a few other ideas in my journal, but when I remember about the gerbera image, the other ideas remained ideas only. Maybe I can use them in later weeks with another stitch.


Hasn't it been interesting looking at other group member's blogs and Flickr photos. There are some wonderful ideas and samples out there! It must be a massive job for Sharon to summarise all the blogs, thank you Sharon it is much appreciated!

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just have to say that that is amazingly gorgeous. At first I thought it was a photograph! Wow.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful, beautiful! And thanks for the step through.

Anonymous said...

Wow!
It is fantastic. What a nice use of stitches!
Thank you for sharing it!

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's gorgeous! It definately looks like a lot of work, but well worth it.

Anonymous said...

So cool! The build-up of stitches makes a wonderful effect.

Anonymous said...

Wow Dy what a fantastic effort, it is wonderful and the shading is terrific. Love it. thanks for lookng at my little sampler.

Anonymous said...

It is the coolest chain stitch flower I've ever seen!!! Thanks for expanding my (stitching) world...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for visiting my blog and searching out the spiral motif. If you go again, if you click on the tast tag in the sidebar, all the tast posts come up, most recent on top. (cq4fun.livejournal)

I am totally impressed with this flower. I can see what you mean about the long stitches, and you might never do one this large again, but it's really, truly amazingly realistic and beautiful.

neki desu said...

this is quite a tour de force!i admire your organization, note taking and drawing skills.wish i could be so well organizeed.thanks for stopping by my blog

neki desu

Dy said...

Thank you everyone for the encouraging comments, you've warmed the cockles of my heart! :-)

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is so beautiful and life-like!

Anonymous said...

What a stunning piece of work. Amazing how life-like it is. Great work :)

Anonymous said...

Wow this is just simply amazing. All your hard work definately payed off this is a wonderful piece.

Anonymous said...

Just totally awesome! I love sunflowers in any shape or form!

Anonymous said...

I can only guess at how many hours that took, but it was definitely worth it! I love the colours!

Anonymous said...

The flower turned out beautiful. I enjoyed the photos of the work in progress. Great colors

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. All of your embroidery is great. Also, I was scrolling down your blog and found the soft tree pattern. I have wanted to make one of these for a long time but didn't want to bother making my own pattern. I now have one, thanks to you. Thanks again.

Liz Needle said...

Simply stunning Dy. I am in awe.

Anonymous said...

This is simply beautiful (but maybe not so simple to do). I love how you've made it so realistic.

Kerri Murphy said...

I really love your sunflower. I would like to try this myself. I have never seen this before.
P.S. I am a middle age swearer also. Some words are just right and you have to use them. LOL

Kerri

Anonymous said...

I have to ask you, Dy, did you convert the image yourself, and if you did, what did you do to it to make it so embriodery friendly.

It's something I'm struggling with at the moment.

Thanks.

Dy said...

shula, yes I converted the image myself. If you have Photoshop, there is a magic little filter called "Find Edges" (under the 'Stylize' heading). It's wonderful for simplifying images, particularly if you desaturate and up the contrast and brightness a bit. It's a bit addictive and you'll find yourself playing with every photo you ever took! :-)

Susan Elliott said...

Your post absolutely made my day! Your daisy is an inspiration and a real beauty. Congratulations!!

SewAmy said...

that daisy is so beautiful.