Embroidery inchie sampler part 3

stem stitch, lazy daisy, cross stitch & blanket stitch

I'm a little surprised that the embroidery sampler is taking on a life of its own, in a good way. In the beginning I had ideas of what I would do, of how it would look, but having a contributing partner kind of throws all those expectations out the window ... and makes it much more exciting!

The sampler above is the one which will live in my house. 

Some of the following photos come from D-I-L's sampler, which I will show you more of in another post.

In an earlier post I described how D-I-L wanted to learn some basic embroidery skills (lucky me 😊) so we decided on a sampler of nine small blocks. With each new stitch we have to complete a feature within the block, and also use the same stitch as the border of a block, any block. Then we swap samplers to repeat the process with a new stitch.

We began with the easiest, most basic stitch - straight stitch. 

Back stitch was our second stitch challenge - back stitch blocks and borders.

 

The french knot blocks are some of our favourites so far. Oooh I just want to keep running my hands over those knots!

Following the french knots came stem stitch.       

                                

Lazy Daisy or detached chain was stitch 5. Inspiration for using lazy daisy stitch was a long time coming, but I am thrilled with how the watermelon turned out!
D-I-L and I have chosen two very different ways to use lazy daisy stitch as a border.

Counted cross stitch is stitch number 6. We've both chosen counted cross stitch patterns for the blocks themselves. I must say enlarging the stitcheries shows up every teeny mistake ... oops, probably shouldn't have said that 😉 .

My cupcake design was taken from the book "Friandes & pattisseries" by Helene Le Berre.

My use of cross stitches as a border is very simple, but I think effective.

We've now begun blanket stitch for stitch 7. I've used four different colours of DMC stranded cotton to work my way around this heart shape. I had planned for the centre line to be a bit more curvaceous, but that's part of the joy of hand work, it doesn't always go how you think it will ... a lot like life!

Best wishes,
Kellie
xo