TAST: Arrow Stitch

Monday, April 16, 2018
Pintangle's Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) by Sharon Boggon

You’ve read about my idea for this here, right? Ok! See all completed TAST posts here.

Last week’s TAST challenge was the Arrow Stitch (or Arrowhead Stitch if stitching vertically). Here is my front and back, for posterity’s sake:

TAST: arrow stitch TAST: arrow stitch

This top portion has several things going on. In the left corner, I was just experimenting with different lengths of the arrowhead stitch (towards the bottom of that light pink, I only stitched one side since the other will be cut away once the pennants are transformed into bunting). Then I played with the same idea, but turned the orange stitches to face each other. The next pink area contains tightly stacked and nested arrowhead stitches. Then I threaded a basic orange arrow stitch with a dark pink thread. Under that, I alternated the height of the orange stitches. I also found I could make geometric shapes fairly easily with the dark pink. Looking at them now, I bet I could add two more well-placed arrow stitches and make a diamond! Then I took light and dark pinks and interwove basic arrow stitches at different heights. The orange along the bottom simply stacked different sized arrow stitches.

I wanted to also contrast the top portion with more simple uses of the arrow stitch. So, in dark pink, I simply offset two rows of arrow stitches. In orange, I stacked two rows to give a very similar (though different sized) diamond shaped effect. And the bottom row are still just basic arrow stitches, tightly stacked in different colors.

For the motif, I stuck an alligator in a pond, with some flying birds and a bare bush to fill in the environment.

And as always, the title portion. It is clear I needed some practice with my stitch lengths and angles here, but I think I got it down now!

With TAST, I am learning that while there may be ways to cheat and make the front look a certain way, if you don’t do the stitch correctly, you waste a lot of thread. And sometimes you waste time or add frustration. Being self-taught, I haven’t always looked up how to do things “right” because if the front looked right, I didn’t care nor understand that there was a “right” way. TAST is awesome and so is Sharon! That being said, I still do things the way that is most comfortable to me, and every stitcher I’ve come across agrees that that’s the best way!

 

See more posts related to:

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Looking for more cases of the Crafties?
Stitch Club: Clover

Stitch Club: Clover

Jette Clover lead a TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club using scraps and a stamp. I used a country farm stamp with a big red barn as inspiration.

read more
Stitch Club: Tume

Stitch Club: Tume

Kate Time lead a TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club on narrative bead texture, and I was inspired to have a play!

read more
Open Press Project

Open Press Project

I ordered a small print press from the Open Press Project and have begun experimenting with pressing leaves.

read more
Stitch Club: Notman

Stitch Club: Notman

Emily Notman lead a TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club where we would learn to make a jar wrap, and I was inspired to create a scene along a lakefront at sunset with cattails blowing in the wind.

read more
Stitch Club: Bliss

Stitch Club: Bliss

Oliver Bliss lead a TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club recently centered on color blocking, and I was inspired to stitch up a skull with flowers.

read more
Nina Stajner + Lake = Swan

Nina Stajner + Lake = Swan

I worked up Nina Stajner’s swan coloring page from the Lake app in a (mostly) single solitary stitch: the stem stitch.

read more
Stitch Club: Norbury

Stitch Club: Norbury

As part of TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club, Ruth Norbury tasked us with making a textural mixed media peice and I chose Hubert Robert’s La Fontaine painting as my subject.

read more
Stitch Club: Steel-Jessop

Stitch Club: Steel-Jessop

As part of TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club, I made a map of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantium (by Martin Springett) following Bridget Steel-Jessop’s workshop.

read more
Kintsugi stones

Kintsugi stones

I used a kintsugi kit by Jack Richardson to meld two broken stones back together.

read more
Painting Miniatures

Painting Miniatures

I tested my painting skills in a challenge with Boy: who could paint the best D&D miniature?

read more
Hexie Dreams 16

Hexie Dreams 16

I have a total of 107 flowers ready for my fussy-cut EPP Hexie Dreams quilt and am moving on to planning how to arrange them.

read more
Eternal napping in the sun

Eternal napping in the sun

You can stop here if you don’t wish to read anything sad today. It’s already bad enough with Roe v. Wade, war, and such, I know.

read more
Stitch Club: Goodwin

Stitch Club: Goodwin

As part of TextileArtist.org’s Stitch Club, I followed Valerie S. Goodwin’s workshop to create a map of one of my favorite places.

read more
Hexie Dreams 15

Hexie Dreams 15

For my fussy-cut EPP Hexie Dreams quilt, I’ve so far stitched together fifty seven flowers.

read more
Ukrainian Whitework

Ukrainian Whitework

In 2020, my embroidery guild offered a class on Ukrainian whitework: the Summer Lace pattern in all white by Terri Bay. Of course, this was well before the war occurring now. My friend, then, had recently gone to Ukraine to meet her father's side of the family for the...

read more
Hexie Dreams 14

Hexie Dreams 14

I’ve begun sewing the hexies together for my fussy-cut EPP Hexie Dreams quilt.

read more