I’m taking a break from blogging for the summer. Unless things significantly change it looks like my dad unexpectedly needs my help in closing up his home here and in some other matters. I’ll be back September 1 with another post.

I’m sorry to have been unexpectedly away from blogging for the past few days. There are several family difficulties that have arisen and are cutting into time available both for stitching and blogging. Things still do not appear to be on an even keel on one of these issues.

I’m taking a blog break until Monday, June 23. I’ll come back with either a normal or amended blog schedule then.

Here’s a look a few of the experiments I’ve been able to do in the past few days. These are continued trials on the raised stitch idea that I’ve been looking into this year. Instead of using a straight stitch or herringbone to raise these stitches, I’ve been looking at stitches that use the previous stitch to raise the next identical stitch.

The third column of sorbellos is my favorite. The first column is cross stitch. But there is another way to do this. I used that method several years ago to create an alphabet.

Many thanks to all of you who have been checking back and to those who have left very kind comments, I’m trying to respond to these a few at a time.

These are the last of my feather stitch photo posts for a little while. Something new has been catching my eye. And I need to start the hard work of putting the the feather stitch sampler together. I still don’t have a great alphabet for the sampler. I’m thinking of going to a script or going to a space for family initials.

My grandmother was a great letter writter and kept a daily diary for probably more than fifty years. A script alphabet would remind me of that. I thought of trying to do it in a hand similar to what she wrote in. However, I can see this taking up more time than I figured. I’ve thought about going to family initials. In the diary and personal letters to the family she consistantly used initials for immediate family members and the farm itself.

Here are some odds and ends of the feather stitch experiments.

A couple of the grids

Columns

I’m debating about all these heart shapes. I’m not sure if they belong in this sampler or not. The feather stitch certainly lends itself to creating them.

This little doodle to the left I can’t seem to repeat. I’d like to make it a line somewhere in the sampler.

There are still a few more experiments with the feather stitch to post.

The line second from the right shows some of the problems I have in extending the stitch too far. It’s not stable in respect to the looped diagonals heading into the center of the line. While I like the idea, I’ve not found an adjustment that works yet. That is calling to me for more experiments.

I could try couchng or a series of diagonal feather stitches. I’m leaning toward couching because the line is cleaner. I’m also curious about the stitch done directly before it. It seems like that stitch is pushing against the limits, too. I’m not sure if a different stitch there would produce a better result for the diagonal one.

These next samples are a series of small experiments playing around with staggering or overlapping. I was initially trying to do some more fern like stitches. But those experiments got side tracked when I started playing around with the texture caused by the overlapping.

One of these experiments are showing where I went beyond the limits of this stitch in some

Well, perhaps these aren’t close enough to the real butterflies to be called butterflies. But they reminded me of butterflies.

My grandmother enjoyed the butterflies as they fluttered about the yard on summer days. I’ve already put some birds in the sampler. I don’t have courage for the lambs or calves yet.

Perhaps these stitches above will find their place in the sampler. I”m thinking of doing them as detached units and attempting to improve them in a few places with some satin stitches.

I’m not sure if this fabric is stained or dyed with tea or coffee, but the variation is showing up in the photo above.

Here are some school girl rows…just testing various alternatives.

The top two are new ideas. The others are variations on a theme from some of the stitching done during SharonB’s 2007 TSTC.

I believe they have a new group started at her stitchin’ fingers community. For any one not familiar with that already, I’ve tried recently to update my page on her challenges with some of that news. Many thanks to Sharon for all wonderful work she does in behalf of hand embroidery, crazy quilting and in so many related needlework fields.

A new week and I’m back on the feather stitch sampler again. I’ve been doing a lot of samples. Here are a few of them.

This first glance contains a few more renditions of the dog paw pattern (the two samples to the right). And at the top a little leaf pattern that reminded me of my grandmother’s ferns. She always had a bed of various ferns along the north porch. Oops, I guess you have to flip that sample about one hundred and eight degrees to get the effect of the ferns. The two samples to the right are part of the pattern I’m working with in the second photo.

The pattern to the left is what originally got me started on the two samples to the right in this photo and and in the one above.

In the last sample in the second photo I had to couch the long center stitches. The long stitches to the right and left are difficult to couch because of the angle of the stitches. They are perhaps stable enough for framed work but not for something that will be washed or handled a lot.

The third sample in the first photo is a smaller version of right and left sides of the last sample. It was done in an attempt to improve the stability of those long stitches. Definitely, not as graceful.

This is a quick glance at part of a small spot sampler that grew out of my experiments on interlacing herringbone and cross stitches this week.

Close ups of the Celtic flavor I tried to insert in some of these experiments.

In the work yesterday some of the barriers to going forward with this stitch came down as I explored Celtic ideas based Anne Gailhbaud’s perspective. Many thanks Anne, that comment sent me in just the right direction.

You won’t see to much of the Celtic flavor in today’s post but more tomorrow. I have now a small spot sampler started with these stitches.

Here is an expansion of thought in stitch.

And flattened

More traditional

Patience will sooner or later pay off but persevering is tough work. Thankfully, friends show up just at the right time.

Anne Gailhbaud encouraged me via a comment that has sent me in a new direction of exploration this morning. We’ll see what key that may hold for solving some of these problems. Many thanks, Anne.

So far the only presentable work on the cross stitch form are these experiments that follow. And you may well laugh with me because this looks much more like a detached herringbone stitch than a cross stitch. I attempted to draw a quick picture of what is going on with these little stitches.  

Above: to the the left two stitches mirrored. To the right attempts at borders or edgings.

Above: two stitches mirrored with a form from yesterday’s post between.

Above: giving up and doing what ever I could think up.

I’m definitely having my problems learning some of the interlacing work on the herringbone and cross stitches. I have a lot of worthless samples and all that I’m posting show some of that struggle. I know from experience that I have to keep pushing through the barriers.

I keep thinking I should try beading to fill in some of the spaces between the stitches above.

I was attempting a curve here, but the spacing in the middle fell apart on both ends. I need to make the herringbone form smaller. Eight threads was to small and this at twelve was too large. Ten has to be the right compromise.

I’m looking forward to trying out some other types threads, too.