TAST week 2: buttonhole stitch (part 2)

*Part 1 can be found here.*

There's still a few variations I haven't tried yet, like buttonhole wheels, snäcksöm and grouped blanket stitch where you stitch the bars one one side and then the other. Not to mention up-and-down buttohole stitch (but that might be a separat stitch for another week?). I'll hopefully get around to them too. Some day.

These are stitched on a scrap piece of cotton fabric. There are several reasons why these stitches aren't even: I'm no good at making even blanket stitches unless working on aida, I didn't draw any lines which could've helped me -- and I watched telly while making several of these stitches. In dim light. Not always a good idea, but then again, I'm mostly seeing this as an excersize and as doodle sessions. More about learning a stitch and experimenting with variations than to practise on making even stitches.

The above versions are all beaded. I wanted to do this as it was Jane Davis book on beaded needlework stitches that was part of renewing my interest in needlework so I wanted to fuse my new interest with my passion for beads. It's all buttonhole stitches, even the top row (the stitches are so small you can't really see the bars).

The black beads are Miyuki's mini drops. Unfortunately it's hard to tell as the fabric pushes them "belly up". Drops probably works better on edges where they can hang free -- after all, they are known as "fringe beads" for a reason.

And then I made some variations without beads too. The first half of the top row is made with double rows of stitches. The seven or so first stitches have then been whipped together. I like to whip stitches -- and it looks very nice when you do it with this stitch.

On this piece, I also wanted to include fly stitches as you can see in the last half of the first row and in the upside-down stitches in the bottom right corner. I quite like that stitch in the corner.Below is a close-up of it, turned the right side up.

As usual I've used plain old mouliné cotton floss -- with the exception of the triple row stitches, which are made using space-dyed linen thread. A bit too heavy for this cheap, flimsy cotton fabric scrap. Well, you live and you learn...

And a last pic. Did several rows of slanted stitches on aida and then filled in some of the open spaces with cross stitches to create a pattern.

That's it. The result of the second week of TAST. I do wonder what stitch we'll get this week...