Welcome to May! This month focuses on fun stitches I've used in some recent and not so recent projects. Today's stitch comes from a background of a Melissa Shirley floral still life from several years ago. It's a riff on a go-to darning stitch for me.
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The stitched sample uses Elegance (gray lines) and YLI Shimmer Ribbon (aqua lines) on 13-mesh. As I mentioned earlier, this is a from a floral piece. I selected this background because I wanted the background to be subtle so the all the flowers, silk ribbon and otherwise, could stand out.
Thought starters for other areas include ground coverings (say snow, sand, or grass), water, flooring, or wallpaper. Consider stitching it on the horizontal for any of the those, as the canvas dictates. You can adjust the number of empty columns in between the blocks of darning stitches for a denser (or even lighter) take on this stitch.
I love the mixture of thread textures and finishes in the stitched sample. More often than not, I use a matte and a metallic. Consider using two matte threads, one overdyed and one solid, for the grass or floor. Combining metallics for an area like snow can be tricky. My advice is to mix metallics with different sheens and different shapes. Examples include the combo of Flair and Kreinik, Silk Lame and Kreinik, or Neon Rays and Petite Silk Lame.
This stitch diagram, along with all other #whimsicalwednesday and #smallspacesunday stitch diagrams, can also be found on a Pinterest board here.
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If you like what you see on this blog, want to learn some very creative decorative stitches, and how to put them all together, whimsicalstitch.com sells stitch guides and stitch concepts for Melissa Shirley Designs, Zecca Designs, and Patience Brewster. Click here to see the 20 newest guides and click here to see the entire collection.
I hope you have the perfect spot for this stitch! Please enjoy!
A Note about Diagrams
I use color in diagrams to make them as clear as possible. The primary function of different colored lines is to illustrate a stitch sequence. For example, layering of colors demonstrates you add them in that order. They can also provide ideas on how to integrate additional threads (one line for each color). Or, you can use the same thread for all color lines. That's where I encourage you to use your imagination for the space you are stitching!