Round chicken scratch: a mini how to

My friend and a wonderful embroideress, Anne Gailhbaud, asked about a how-to on the round variations to chicken scratch. So this is a mini step through on one of the grids I did. I’m no expert on regular chicken scratch and only applied what I thought were some basics in it to one of Michele D’Amore’s designs from Marcus Fabrics.

This is the flower.

The first photo below shows the outline stitches (simple running stitches). Once they are completed, the first step for making the loops is to pull aside one of the edge stitches and bring your needle up through the cloth where its beginning will be hidden as the edge stitch is released. And then the photo shows slipping the needle under two of the middle outline stitches to make the beginning of the first loop. 

All the loop are done be slipping the needle under outline stitches with only the beginning and ending of the thread that going through the fabric. I’ve used a Perle 12. I imagine other threads would work also. I just used what I had at hand. It might be fun to try the outline stitches in Perle 12 and the loops in Perle 8.

Please for give the flash spots on the needle. Much to my dismay, the flash insisted on coming on because of the dark fabric color.

Note: I passed the needle under the outline stitch and under the thread of the first loop for all these petals. This is not necessary but consistency here is probably the key. Do as you please.

Now making similar steps until the beginning of the end loop where I passed the needle under the outline stitch but over the beginning loop.

To finish pull the edge outline stitch aside and insert needle into the ground and pull through to complete petals. The outline stitch when released should cover your beginning and ending points.

Although these examples were worked in hand on the plain fabric, I did prepare some cloth with a light weight fusible knit interfacing due to a great recommendation from Marty at Textiles in Time. Many thanks, Marty. It has stablized the fabric wonderfully for me. I’m use to holding linen or felt in hand and hate hoops. If you enjoy using a hoop I’m sure that would work well, too. And I think my tension would be under better control if I would use a hoop.

This is a border

Below is a grid for working the border. You will see the edge stitches are small but the middle stitches inside the grid borders are larger and go from circle to circle. Those stitches will be used twice, once by the neighboring flower. Many other arrangements are possible. I simply did what I like best.

Please don’t hesitate to ask a follow up question in a comment.  This was a rather quickly pulled together post and I may have inadvertently left out some vital step or information.

Next scheduled post: Monday (us, west coast)

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