BAS - Week 32 - Couching with Embroidery Stitches

First, I'll start with a brief explanation of BAS, that is, the Build a Seam Challenge. I was finding myself using my same two or three favourite stitches for most of my crazy quilting seam treatments and knew I needed to stretch and grow a bit. BAS was born! lol Each week (roughly) I post a new stitch, technique or framework for a seam and the challenge is to use it in a seam treatment, to try something that might be new and to widen our outlook and consider new ways to use these stitches.
The Build a Seam Challenge is open to everyone. It is run out of the CQI Novice Group but I also post it here on my blog for anyone who is not a member to have access to it. You can jump in anytime, play catchup, or just pick the ones you like. There is nowhere to sign up and no obligations. I would love to see your seam treatments though so if you post a comment with a link to the picture, it is great inspiration for me and others playing along. On the right hand side of this blog you will see a list of previous weeks with links so you can check those out as well.

So, on with this week's challenge - couching with embroidery stitches. The inspiration for this one came from Judith Baker Montano's great little book, "Crazy Quilting - A Complete Guide". The idea is to take a braid, trim, cord or other fiber and to couch it down with embroidery stitches - something other than the usual little straight stitches. I've used fan shaped clusters of straight stitches for this one. You might use buttonhole stitch, detached chain, or any other stitch. By the way, the stripes you are seeing in the picture are my stripes of Tiger Tape. This bit is a work in progress so my trusty Tiger Tape is there helping me to keep my stitches spaced evenly.
Have fun! I hope you like this one and I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Comments

Maggie R said…

This is so pretty....what a great idea.... I will certainly try this. I have some of Judith's books and CD's but not that one.
Thanks for sharing
xoxo
((((hugs))))
Maggie

August 2, 2009 at 6:38 AM

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BAS - Week 81 - Sequin Flower with Tutorial

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BAS - Week 79 - Feather Stitch Variations

I have about the next twenty BAS stitches scheduled and by happy coincidence this week's BAS is a series of Feather Stitch variations which coincide with this week's TAST stitch if you are following. So, we can hit two birds with one stone! These hardly look like feather stitch but they are. They are created by making the "v"'s of the feather stitch vertical on the inside. Very simple to do but a different look to an old stitch. The second variation is created by doing two feather stitches at a time on each side, again making sure the inside of your "v"s are vertical and line up as much as possible. Same thing again in this one except they are in series of three. To me these have the look of stitching on old crazy quilts so they are nice to add to your stable of stitch variations. Hope you enjoy them and have fun!

kerrykatiecakes

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