 Detached Chain Stitch can be worked with 2 needles to make a 2 coloured stitch, thread one needle with the loop colour and one needle with the seal down stitch colour…When stitched with silk ribbon the 2 coloured Detached Chain Stitch looks like rose buds.
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 With a few small adaptations the Butterflies that I showed you the other night Dragon Fly…Use straight stitches to Stitch a small tappered body, place Detached Chain Stitch wings either side and add 2 French Knot eyes…I used a metalic thread for the wings so that it would shine like dragonfly wings do.
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The Take it Further Challenge March design is to pay attention to the tiny details…I have been pondering over this all month, so much of my work is tiny detail that not one thing that I had thought of stood out and somehow the question sounded to me to be bigger than any individual tiny detail…
Today, while I was stitching for Earth Hour I was thinking about how my life has changed over the last few years as I have made small changes to do what I can to reduce my footprint on our planet and as I was thinking I realized that this seam represents the concept of the March Design…I have always lived by the philosophy ‘think Globally, act Locally’ and acting locally is looking at the tiny details of how I use electricity/water/petrol and making small changes where I can, those small changes are making a big difference to my power bills and I hope that they help make a difference for the earth…
Stem Stitch done with 2 strands of varigated cotton floss.
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 Detached Chain Stitches makes lovely butterflies.
The first time I encountered these butterflies was on the cover of Dorothy Bonds book Crazy Quilt Stitches (ISBN 0-9606086-0-5) which look much like the first purple butterfly which is done with silk buttonhole twist thread.
I tend to leave a gap between the wings so that I can add a stitched or beaded body…the second butterfly is stitched with Rayon Thread and has a beaded body.
The 3rd butterfly is stitched with Silk Ribbon and has a stitched body…Silk Ribbon makes a lovely full winged butterfly.
Below is a flight of Butterflies on a detail from my crazy quilt called Butterflies. 
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To decorate my sampler eggs I have done rows of embroidery stitches making them miniature samplers…Because Easter Eggs are wrapped in bright, shiny foil I have used shiny threads for the stitching on the eggs and all the threads are metalics or rayon.
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When you make a long seal down stitch on the Detached Chain it opens up other possibilities for making patterns with them…the thread I used on this seam is Ribbon Floss
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Another thing that you can do with Detached Chain Stitch is to make the seal down stitch long which gives a whole different look to the stitch.
I photographed this seam before adding the beads to show how the detail of adding the beads adds a lot to the overall look of the seam…The thread is Silk Buttonhole Twist.
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Detached Chain stitch using a Varigated Rayon Thread with Colonial knot flowers done with a varigated size 5 cotton pearl thread.
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A Shamrock for Saint Patricks Day and St Patricks Day is the time to plant Sweet Peas Down Under.
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Detached Chain sealed with a Colonial Knot and trimmed with beads
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