I’m not sure how I feel about this section. I like most of the individual stitches in it but I don’t know if I like how it hangs together as a whole. Hopefully it’ll grow on me.
There were some interesting stitches in it. A couple of them had alternatives as they were apparently difficult. They were both ones that I’d done recently in Song of The Weather though so I didn’t have a problem with them. They were a bit fiddly, but then that just makes them interesting.
I’ve started to look forward to getting more and more new, interesting and hopefully difficult stitches to do. I fear I may be turning into a stitchy adrenaline junkie, if there is such a thing.
This is what the new section looks like.
One of the stitches for which a substitute was given was the flower made up of three stitches. The Satin Leaf stitch and Padded Satin stitch are simple enough but the Detached Buttonhole stitch was trickier and was the one substituted. I’d only just done that on July’s Song of The Weather though so it was fresh in my mind and although it was a bit more fiddly on this, being smaller, I’m pleased with how it turned out.
The other difficult one was the Porto Rico Rose. It consists of Lazy Daisy stitch, which I may be a bit bored of now but don’t have a problem with, and Bullion Knots, which I’m ok with. I did them a month or two ago on Song of the Weather and more recently on The Flower Sampler book so although they may not look perfect, they are reasonable. I think it’s fair to say that I had plenty of practise at them on this piece.
This stitch is just a bit of backstitch with Lazy Daisys and Ray stitch but I think it looks pretty. I did have a mishap though. I’ve just been looking through the instruction sheets to check the names of the stitches before typing and noticed that there’s a diagram for Stem stitch. That’s odd because I didn’t do any Stem stitch. Having checked the chart, the green bits on this stitch should have been done in that and not Backstitch. Ooops. It looks fine though. I’m not going to change it.
I quite liked the effect of this next stitch and I love its name. It’s Maniototo and was a fun one to do, even if it did have yet more Lazy daisys in it. (sorry it’s a bit blurry)
Finally we have Pistil stitch. I couldn’t quite figure this one out from the instructions. You know how sometimes you stare at something and it just doesn’t make sense? In the end I Googled it and found a great YouTube video that showed it being done perfectly. It’s just a long stitch with a French Knot on the end. Simple really, but it looks great. I really like this stitch.
Now I have a few days free before going back to week one of my rotation so I’m at a bit of a loose end. I’m very tempted to start a new project but then again, I would quite like to do some more to Tree of Stitches. Or maybe some crochet…
A slight obsession with books 