Take a Stitch Tuesday - Algerian Eye Stitch & Eyelet Stitch

Flippin' heck I'm behind this week. Ah well, it's okay because I now have A PLAN. I've been pondering what to do with all these TAST samples - I didn't want to just have them all lying around in a box being useless, but what to do with them?


See this daggy looking box here? This is an old Xmas gift box that sits on the top of my fridge to keep paper napkins in. I used to have to napkins loose but they annoyed the hell out of me slipping and sliding all over the place, but rather than being sensible and just going shopping for a napkin box, enterprising little ol' me grabbed the Xmas box, sawed a 'v' out of the front with the bread knife and hey presto - napkin box. But it's not pretty is it. Hence my plan. I'm going to cover it with any of the embroidery samples I've done on green fabric. The Chevron sample will cover one side, the Cretan sample will cover another, and this week's stitch, Algerian Eye stitch is the beginnings of the front of the box.


So, back to Algerian eye stitch and eyelet stitch, the only difference being the number of stitches into the central eye I believe. As usual the members of this challenge have come up with some fabulous ideas for their stitches, and the one that cracked me up this week was Pat's little story about stitches having a mind of their own!

First off I thought of stitching a solid wall of different shaped squares to represent a stone wall, with the idea of scattering flowers over it. Then I had a bit of a play on different backgrounds - I wanted to see what different weaves did to the eyelet hole that is produced in the middle. I didn't have a lot of success with this, I don't think I had my thread under enough tension.


In the end, after deciding that this sample was to become part of the adorned napkin box, I just started stitching a scattering of Algerian eye stitch flowers, the idea being that it would look a bit like they were tumbling over the edge of a wall. Did anyone else find that they had trouble finding the exact same spot to poke the needle into for the central hole? I found that I kept missing it just slightly, methinks a trip to the optometrist for a stronger prescription is in order! Anyway, I used 2 strands of DMC cottons, and mucked around a bit with blending the thread colours.


Can you see what I'm trying to do here? This is the front of the napkin box, on one side of the 'v' I cut out. Do you think it looks like flowers spilling over the edge? I'm thinking now as this week's new stitch is feather stitch, to do some grassy type stuff along the bottom, so this sample will be a combined one with two different stitches in it.