This is a stitch I had heard of before, but have never stitched. Like most of these stitches, I feel it would have been a good stitch to have known before! Whilst on my sampler elephant, I have used it decoratively, I have a feeling it would really come into its own when edging and finishing off items like needle cases and journal covers.
I was a little boring with my thread selection this time round. Back to plain DMC in two colours, and using two strands. Depending on the effect you were going for, I imagine you can get a lot out of this stitch just by changing the threads used. If it suited your embroidery, it would also be another good chance to dig out those variegated threads.
I actually found this stitch to be straight forward to stitch, through playing around with the base foundation stitches, I learnt how it works best to my eye.
The first step is to lay a foundation row of back stitches. Whilst playing around with the stitch and experimenting with the effect the different lengths of this foundation stitch, I found it looked best (to me anyway!) if those stitches were smaller.
The second step is to weave your second thread through these foundation stitches, the ‘bottom’ weave misses one backstitch, and the top one goes backwards to weave into this missed stitch. If you are after ‘proper’ instructions, head over to Pintangle where Sharon has explained it much better!
The tip I found for the weaving backwards from the top, was that it was easier to have a small loop of the bottom weave to hold before pulling it through completely, as it made it easier to get the needle to sit on top of this stitch.
When using the stitch with two parallel lines (well mine were a bit wonky as I did it by sight!), it was a little more difficult to weave as I was dodging the second row, but all in all it was a good little experiment!
Have you used this stitch before? I’d love to see your stitching of it! And to finish off, here’s my sampler elephant of the TAST stitches for 2016 to date. I’m having so much fun with it!
