Annies Crazy World

I havn’t found the camera or got to the computer in the last week But I have been getting some stitching done and today I got it photographed.

The first line is another Beaded Cretan Stitch.

The second line is Cretan stitched with randam stitch length, width and spaceing…This variation works well in landscape surface embroidery and when crazy quilting it is useful when I want a background blending stitch.

The Second line is also the start of my Take it Further Challenge May colours.

The next lot of stitches are from my teaching notes and to my eye they look better going up and down so so that is the way that I have stitched them…notice how small changes in the angle of the needle and the spacing can make a difference to the look of the stitch…

I have trimmed the first up/down line with colonial knots.

The second up/down line is trimmed with detached chain stitch.

On the third up/down line I added beads to the threa as I was working the stitch.

And the last up/down line is upside down, I love how turning it upside down changes the look of the stitch again.

Slowly my Strength is returning, today I got outside in the sunshine and did a bit of light sweeping and raking and last night I got a another seam stitched on my band sampler, before I got sick I was working with putting beads onto Cretan Stitch, for this variation I have used seed beads combined with a medium sized crystal bead.

This seam is 2 rows of beaded cretan Cretan Stitch that have their central arms overlapped and sharing the bead.

The first row is worked with the puple rice beads down the centre and the seed beads on all the arms.

When working the second row… For the outside stitches across the bottom put a rice and a seed bead on the needle before working the stitch…For the overlapped/share a bead stitches in the centre put just a rice bead on the needle before putting the needle through the bead from the first row, hold the loop of the thread out of the way with your thumb then work the stitch under the bead.

I started this seam putting seed beads on the arms and central sections of the Cretan Stitch, for the seed beads I made the arms closer together which fits the seed beads but after I started I just didn’t like it, I tried adding another coloured bead to the pattern which was a little better but I so liked how the rice shaped beads worked the other night I still wasn’t happy with this one so I finished mid seam and used the rest of the seam to experiment with Bugle beads which give more shape to the seam and worked much better.

Top Row…Last night I put seed beads on the central sections of the Cretan Stitch, tonight I have replaced them with rice shaped beads.

Middle Row…again I used the rice shape beads in the central sections and added a seed bead to each arm, I think that this one worked really well.

Bottom Row…I thought that the top seam would look nice with additional seed beads added seperatly to the ends of the arms.

Last night I put beads onto the arms of the Cretan Stitch, Today I have put beads onto the spaces between the arms.

I have also taken an in progress photo to show how I put the bead on the thread while stitching the seam…you do need to use a thread that will fit through the eye of a needle that will fit through the hole of the bead…

The black spots in the photo are the pencil spots that I use to mark the position of the stitches when the thread count of the fabric is to many to count.

This photo also shows a finer point of how I form the cretan stitch…You can see that my needle is at a slight angle with the point of the needle coming up a thread width behind where it went in for the end of the arm, the reason I do this is because if I make the stitch straight up from the end of the arm then that next thread pull push the arm thread to the right causing the arm to be on a slight angle and look slightly bent but when the stitch is done at a slight angle as illustrated then it will sit beside the now straight arm thread.

While visiting Quieter Moments blog earlier today I clicked on her cretan stitch Category and found in there a sample of Cretan stitch with beads umm I hadn’t thought of putting beads on the thread as I worked the cretan stitch, I like this one

This is the weave that I was trying to do yesturday, with a narrower seam and with the arms of the stitches closer together it has oven up beautifully today.

I did the base Cretan Stitch for this seam to do a copy of Detail 378 but I did the Cretan stitches to wide and spaced to far apart so that weave looked funny so I wove the silk ribbon through the middle parts of the stitch as well, I like the slightly irregular shapes of the ribbon.

The original of this seam is on my Bridesmaids dress, it is embroidered in red on red fabric and I nearly missed it but am glad that I did pick it up because I like the secondary pattern created by this overlapping of the 2 rows of cretan stitch.