Beaded cretan stitch flower

This week’s TAST challenge is Cretan stitch.For more details, please click here.I’d tried this stitch before to embroider flowers and leaves.But, today I’m going to experiment it with beads.To understand this better, please learn the basic cretan stitch.

I began with 3 beads.One bead has to be fixed at the tip of the petal and the rest at the left (the number of beads depends on the width of the area).Look at the position of the needle and beads.Wrap the thread under the needle and pull through.

This is the right hand side of the petal (2 beads here and for the remaining rows).Alternate between left and right.

End the stitch with one bead, at the base.So, the basic thing here is one bead at the tip, one at the base and for the rest, depending on the width.

The completed flower looks like this.The same method can be used to embroider leaves (use green coloured thread).

Aari embroidery

These are some of the aari embroidery works done by Anita of artisticfingers.

She has put together a seven-part tutorial on aari work.Those of you interested in learning this embroidery, please click the following links:

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/10/indian-embroidery-aari-embroidery_13.html

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/10/aari-embroidery-2-fabric.html

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/10/aari-embroidery-part-3.html

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/11/aari-embroidery-part-4.html

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/11/aari-embroidery-part-5.html

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/11/aari-embroidery-part-6.html

http://artisticfingers.blogspot.com/2011/11/aari-embroidery-part-7.html

If you have any interesting articles/tutorials related to embroidery on your blog, I would be more than happy to feature them here.Happy stitching!

Peacock design

Hi everyone!This is my first post of this year.Thanks for all your comments, suggestions etc.I’m sorry for the delay in publishing your comments because I don’t surf the internet daily and sometimes there are other reasons, mainly:

a)Personal problems

b)Technical problems-something happening to my PC.

First, there was this virus problem.Then, the anti-virus corrected itself.Maybe because a few days earlier, I uninstalled many programs and cleaned the system.Last week, the monitor wasn’t working ( my PC is quite old.While most of you own laptops and flat monitors, mine is the box-type.Since I live on a tight budget, I have no plans to replace it yet).It had happened before but after I pulled out and plugged in back the wires it would work, but not last week.Finally, I gave up and was planning to call the technician.On Wednesday night, I gave it one last try and like a miracle-the system was working again!My son was jumping up and down with joy.Scared of losing it again, the first thing I did was to log into my BLOGGER account and there were a few comments needed to be published.So, sorry for the delay.

This year, I’ve decided to join Sharon’s TAST(Take A Stitch Tuesday) 2012 challenge.I doubt whether I could keep up with others but it’s worth trying.Our first challenge is fly stitch.Please click here for her link.Since I’d done a few posts on this stitch, I just had to comment and leave my links.But before this, I’d already stitched a peacock using fly stitch.This peacock can be embroidered on anything – T-shirts, jeans,sarees, dresses….and it’s quite easy to stitch.

Draw a 5cm horizontal line.Then, draw a 3cm vertical line from the middle of the previous line.Sew some sequins on the vertical line to form a peacock’s head and body.The sequins on the fourth row overlap each other.The neck should be a bit tilted.Embroider the peacock’s beak, legs and crest (is it what it’s called?).

For the tail, position the sequins as shown and sew them onto the fabric.

For the tail feathers, I’d decided to use fly stitch.As I embroidered, I realized that I didn’t have to draw the straight lines of the tail.While working the fly stitch, you could use the thread itself as a guide to get a straight line to the body of the peacock.Use sequins that match the colour of your fabric.The choice of thread is yours.After completing this, I realized that the beak and crest should had been stitched with a different coloured thread.