TAST week 3: Feather stitch

English name: feather stitch

Swedish name: kråkspark

 *UPDATE: I've added some new detailed photos -- and another feather stitch variation made last night*

Feather stitch is another one of my favourite stitches. Not just because of its slightly odd swedish name: kråkspark literally means crow kick. I pretty much like all stitches you "lasso", thread, whip or interlace. And I especially like stitches that have an organic feel, that meaned like vines or make great branches and flowers.

For my first attempt at beaded feather stitch, see this post on my WIP ribbon bracelet. For this week's challenge I only made one beaded version and that was with the 2-hole tila beads (by Miyuki) as you can see in the top right corner of the pic above. Thought the bead would align perfectly with the u-shape of the feather stitches, but you can't really see much of the stitch, working it like this and there's no real benefit to stitching a 2-hole bead this way so it's perhaps more fun than useful. I'm thinking about trying it with PreciosaOrnela's Twin beads too. Because of their shape the stitch might be more visible so to speak.

I've done several "traditional" variations inspired by a embroidery book borrowed from the library. That's the lavender stitches at top. There you can for example see chained feather stitch  (second from the left) and grouped feather stitch.

The sixth and last of the lavender stitches is a basic stitch with a twist. Literally: the stitches are twisted the same way I did with some of the fly stitches here.

I had an idea to make a row with novelty yarn. Eyelash yarn was the idea, but looking at them, I felt it wasn't going to be pretty. So instead my eyes fell on another ball of yarn: Red Heart Aurica. It's just perfect for this stitch!

Then I went on to do some variations including fly stitch (to the right, lower half of the picture). First I added fly stitches to a row of feather stitch, using the same colour for both. For the second row, I added purple fly stitches. The third row is purple feather stitch with a second row of pink feather stitches on top of the first.

The last thing I did was another take on beaded feather stitch, but instead of seed beads I use tiny lucite (acrylic) flowers that I added directly to the stitches. As you can see, I tried to add them both to the middle and on the edge of the stitches. The flowers do end up sitting slightly slanted against the fabric, but if you don't want to add the flowers afterwards and think it takes too long to do, this is an option.

...and that's the result of my third weekly TAST challenge.

Oh, yes -- if you've missed my feather stitch bangle (which I consider part of my challenge result) you can see more of it here.

...aaaand then I went and did this last night. Inspired by the bi-colour (or magical) chain stitch. Same principle, but with feather stitch.

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What is TAST?

Take a Stitch Tuesday is a weekly embroidery challenge throughout the year by Sharon of Pin Tangle. You can read more about it here (or by clicking the TAST badge to the right).


To see what others have done in this stitch, check out the comments in this post on Pin Tangle.