Stitch Sampling

Taking a thread for a walk

I’m a hand -stitcher, I like the feel of cloth in my hands, I like the slow repetition of hand-stitching. I enjoy pushing and pulling my needle through the cloth, seeing how the stitches are formed, and how I can alter them. How I can choose where I place each stitch or part of it, how changing the thread, fabric and how much I tension every stitch changes how a stitch looks.

I’ve been playing about with hand-stitching for the joy of it for a few weeks now. Finishing a few pieces that have been waiting for inspiration, trying out “doodle stitching”, stitching with beads, exploring eyelet stitches and unmaking/ remaking a fragment of patchwork.

There’s a lot to be said about stitching like this; it sparks things, gives reminders and offers quiet reflective time. Whilst I’ve been enjoying working on these pieces very much completed a project that I started last year and kept putting aside, concerned that I wouldn’t be able to make my idea become a reality. As I stitched the beaded sampler I remembered how much I’ve enjoyed using beads and goldwork techniques. I was delighted to send two small decorated books in a little silk envelope to the friend who sent me the structures.

I’ve been flicking through a book about needlelace and needle-weaving that was first published in 1975, mine was published unchanged in 1991. It’s not the most colourful stitch book, yet despite the dated pictures and designs, it's fascinating. Filled with black and white stitch diagrams and extensive content: looped and laid stitches, insertion stitches, interlaced stitches, edgings, stitches worked on warps or drawn threads.

I’m eager to play with some of the stitches from this book, however I tend to make large individual samples which take time to finish. I need to learn to make smaller samples, yet the pleasure of stitching leads me to keep going with every stitch, especially if I consider variations then my samples can take me days to stitch. It’s becoming clear that working more sample pieces like the doodle stitching above would be good for exploring a stitch plus its variants. The informality allows for working as much or as little of one stitch to see how it works, I can also pick up the cloth as and when I want to add something new to the sample.

The Fragment Diary

I’ve made progress with the first Fragment Diary, I’ve tacked the fragment to a piece of heavy woollen fabric. The woollen fabric has added a good amount of weight to the piece, making it easy to stitch without the need for a hoop. I’m adding simple straight stitches to the centre section, as I’ve done this I’ve unpicked the herringbone stitch I originally used to secure the three sections together. My process for this project is about unmaking/remaking as a means of exploring a large collection of patchwork pieces, I have no intention to be precious about these pieces. If the stitching doesn’t fit with the piece I’ll remove it and try something else.

Once the red stitching I’m working on currently is complete I’ll continue to use more straight stitching to begin to soften the remaining cut edges.

Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear about how other stitchers make samples as part of their practice, and also what they do with these when they’re complete.