Week 30 - Oyster Stitch

The first thing I thought of when I saw this week's stitch was ... well oysters. I thought I'd do this with a little pearl in the corner.

I ended up not doing that, though I still might. I got the fist two stitches done and immediately thought they looked like pussy willows, so I switched to a fuzzy thread for the oyster stitch.

The long stems are stem stitches and the short stems and bracts are straight stitches.

I've been busy with so many things and I don't multi task very well, so I didn't get a lot done with other stitches, but I did try to do at least a little bit of each.

This flower is basque stitch, except for the stem stitch stem. The grass is up and down buttonhole stitch.

Cable chain is difficult for me for some reason, hence I did several rows of it. I'm still not happy with it. It simply doesn't look like any of the pictures of it. I seem to get more of a knot than  a tiny link between the larger chain links. There are also palestrina, up and down buttonhole basque, and bonnet stitches in the sample. I had a little fun mixing the bonnet and up and down buttonhole.

I didn't know what to do with the knotted cretan stitch (white and green). In the gold I tried to do it every which way. I like it, but don't have an application for it. I also tried irregular buttonhole wheels. Irregularity tends to make the spokes stick out - or maybe that's just my tension. Originally the butterfly was supposed to be a bird, but I couldn't get the line of it right. (Probably should draw an outline first!) Since I got the butterfly chain stitch wrong the first time, I did some more. On the single strip you can see where I made the same error again. On the solid bit I tried to alternate the stitches picked up by the chain. Not sure if I like the results or not.

Haven't worked on this in a while, but I did add some whipped wheels. There will be more of them. And then... I'll have to look at the pattern.

TAST STITCHES
Whipped Wheels (week 11)
Buttonhole Wheel (week 24)
Cable Chain Stitch (week 25)

Go take a look at PinTangle to see some gorgeous work with oyster stitch.