Stitch Explorer March - Assissi work

I'm taking part in Sharon B's Stitch Explorer Challenge. Find out all about it here.

This month it's Assissi Work. Traditionally, Assissi Work is done in one colour in cross stitch around a voided motif on white fabric. We played around with the 'Assissi Effect' whilst studying for the City & Guilds Certificate. Here are some of my efforts:




In the above example, the cross stitch is replaced by a painted background, overlaid with net. An outline of stemstitch has been worked to sharpen up the images.



In this example, the background has been painted and the net omitted.



And in this example, I played around with different counted thread stitches to fill in the images,leaving the background as the negative white spaces. In all these examples I stuck to the traditional blue and white.

Cheer up and hang on!

I seem to have escaped full-blown flu, but I have got most of the minor irritating symptoms. I got up yesterday morning and felt as if I'd grown old suddenly overnight. Looking for something to do that wouldn't need too much application and energy, I made this 'pin doll', to cheer myself up:


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The 'body' part measures about 3 inches, so you need a good cup size to show it off to full effect!

It cheered me up sufficiently to make this pair of 'hangers on' to go with it:


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You probably noticed, these still feature trellis stitch.

(I'm taking part in Sharon B's Stitch Explorer Challenge. Find out all about it here. This month it's Trellis Stitch.)

Stitch explorer - even more trellis!

(I'm taking part in Sharon B's Stitch Explorer Challenge. Find out all about it here. This month it's Trellis Stitch.)

I couldn't waste the sample I made for the previous post, so I fashioned it into this:


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A simple wallet to hold those other things I keep losing down the back of the sofa - you know - usb flash drive, sewing machine memory card, software dongles! I lined it with polyester suede and it fastens with a machine wrapped cord with a loop and beads.

Then I made these brooches:


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The biggest ones measure about 2.5 inches. I used the left-over fabric from making the little dolls (two posts ago), added trellis stitch and embellishments, padded, backed with craft vilene (pellon) and felt and zigzagged together on the sewing machine.

Stitch explorer - more trellis

I'm taking part in Sharon B's Stitch Explorer Challenge. Find out all about it here. This month it's Trellis Stitch.

In the last post, I used it in a less conventional way, as a frame for a face on a doll. Now I've used it in the more traditional way. I've used up the left-over fabric from this:


(sorry for the bad quality photo!)

I made this the other evening, because I got fed up with looking for my specs! I either put them down and lose them, or I sit on them. The background is a piece of unfortunately hand-printed fabric, mangled to a synthetic washing up cloth with some scraps of silk via the embellisher machine then machine quilted with pre-programmed stitches. I decorated the fabric with hand stitching, beads and sequins then wrapped it around a cardboard tube. It's lined with an odd piece of teddy bear fur and has three dividers made from covered card inside, so I can pop in a pair of specs, a pair of scissors and whatever else I am likely to lose down the back of the sofa!

Then I used the left-over fabric for a trellis stitch sample.


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I used cotton perle and a foundation row of buttonhole stitch. I made the 'flower' with the blue stamens by working a tube in trellis stitch, then pulling it to one side and fastening with a stitch from the back. I worked another tube, decreasing at the top, and sewed a bead inside, and the other motif I worked around in a spiral. Then I got carried away and decorated them all!
The next photo shows the difference it makes if you work a spiral in buttonhole stitch instead, it's much flatter.


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