TAST week 4: cretan stitch

English name: cretan stitch

Swedish name: kretastygn

This week's stitch was one I've never tried before. At least I can't recall having done it. As usually, if a stitch can be stitched on counted fabric I prefer trying it on aida as I don't have to worry about getting them straight and evenly spaced.

As you can see above, I played around with different variations. Especially layering multiple rows of cretan (with the bi-coloured row you can see how I "braided" the two rows). The zig zag shape in the bottom right is made by stitching fly stitches between the bars of the cretan stitches.

Then I switched to a different fabric. Mostly to be able to stitch closer -- I especially wanted to try the variation you can see in the top, layering three rows of stitches close to each other.

Of cause I had to give the Red Heart Aurica yarn a go this week too. Not as perfect a match as for feather stitch, but still a fun effect.

Next I wanted to do some beaded stitches. I tried adding bead both to the "bars" and to the centre, even doing a few stitches fully beaded. I prefer the ones with beads on the edges. (And I forgot to edit out that ugly stain, which I didn't see until I uploaded the pics... Did erase in the pic on Flickr so it'd look nicer. That's what you get for watchng TV, drinking must and having playful kittens around you when embroidering!)

The next stitches started as a variation on the think border shown in the second pic. Here three colours were used instead of one. For the bottom row, I did cretan in red and then added fly stitches on either side, purple on the top and orange on the bottom.

Here I stitched a row with green and then teal thread. The bottom row differs from the variation in the previous pic as I entered the fabric (with the teal thread) on one side of the green bar and came up again on the other, therefore covering the first layer of stitches more than previously. The stitches above that row is stitched with both green and teal thread on the same needle.

Then, finally, I also wanted to try using another novelty yarn. I ended up choosing Carat by Marks & Kattens. Should've used a slightly bigger needle, but it worked ok. It doesn't give such a special effect as the Aurica yarn, but it's always fun stitching with less common materials.

So that's it, my fourth week of the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge finished. I do enjoy this type of stitch (blanket/buttonhole, feather, cretan) so it's been a lot of fun. So far I haven't dared try any of the knotted variations, but I'll have to do that soon. Have to learn some of the trickier stitches too.

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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. Be sure not to miss Sharon's lovely stitch variations in the actual post.