Take a Stitch Tuesday Week 2

The stitch of the week for the Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge is buttonhole stitch.

Buttonhole has many variations and versions and I am sure some people will explore them this week. I was going to do just that but after looking at what samples I had to and working a few new ones I decided that there are so many things you can do with just plain simple buttonhole (or blanket stitch as some people call it) that I would just leave it at that.

As you can see just by changing the height and spacing and base line of the stitch there is a lot you can do with this versatile stitch. In other weeks I will look at varieties but if people want to dive in and explore varieties this week please feel free to do so.

As you may have realised I am concentrating on the basic stitches first as many people in the challenge are new hands to embroidery and I don’t want to scare them off with complex or advanced stitches.

These samples are all worked on Aida cloth with a hand dyed thread which is the same weight as perle 5.

They are part of band sampler I use for teaching. The band sampler contains 25 rows of buttonhole in various formations.

Each row is worked in a straight line.

You can also work buttonhole easily on a curve. In this case buttonhole is worked back to back in leaf like or seed pod shapes in wool, danish flower thread, rayon thread, or cotton perle 8 thread.

This sample worked in texutred yarn, Danish flower thread and wool has a landscape feel to it.

This sample is a freeform sample worked in a variety of threads.

I think last week was a very successful start to the challenge and most people soon embraced the mood of experimentation and embarked on exploring the stitches in their way. As you can see in my update and weekly round up people discovered all sorts of ways to use this stitch and worked it in a variety of ways.

The weekly round up

If you missed out being included in the first community round up, don’t fret as every week I will do the same thing. If you blogged your stitching results after I wrote the link round up you will be included this week. This week I sprung the ‘round up day’ on readers. I realised as I wrote the summary that I have not told people what day I would publish it, so it’s only fair to include any one who missed out this week.

After some thought I decided that I would make it standard practice, each week to link to anyone who has updated their blog or flickr site, even if they are in catch up mode. Sometimes life gets in the way, digital cameras break down, or creativity does not fit in with a timetable so I will just update accordingly.

Put simply if you have added a sample on your blog or flickr site that is related to this challenge I will include you in the weekly summary. This will be published either Saturday or Sunday. This gives people time to stitch and yet leaves time for those who need a bit eye candy to get their inspiration. I am not shifting the deadline as such as I can include anything published after my Sunday round up the following week.

Share but don’t compare
Some people have said they feel intimidated. I want to state this quite clearly - This is a personal challenge not a competition. There are no prizes, no judges and extremely flexible guidelines for a reason. I think competing stifles exploration as people need to feel it’s OK to try something new. The idea is explore stitches and develop a skill. Each person is on a path of their own, at different skill levels, with different approaches, but the common bond is that the journey is shared online with the community. So share but don’t compare is the motto for this week.

An Important Request
When you blog your challenge pieces please remember to link. If you saw something on someone’s blog and it provoked an idea that led you to try something different, please link to them. Apart from being good blog etiquette it is giving credit where it is due. For the person concerned it will also give them a confidence boost particularly if they thought what they did was not that interesting.

The idea behind this challenge is to share your discoveries with the community. To do this people need to link to each other. On a purely practical level it means that readers can explore the network moving from blog to blog. Remember when you first discovered blogs? Remember how you found other people who had the same interests as you by following links? If you don’t link then your readers will not discover the community in the same way you did. Please if you remember whenever you write about this challenge please link to my site or the challenge page Take a stitch Tuesday for the same reason. It means that readers can find the challenge.

Have fun with buttonhole this week and happy stitching!