TAST – A Tuesday too late: Detached Chain
Last year’s week three stitch was detached chain. I have used this stitch already in combinations with buttonhole and herringbone stitch as seam treatments in crazy quilting, so I thought I would play with the stitch a bit. It doesn’t take much to turn this into fly stitch! I use it for lots of flowers – but I’ve never used it for a person before! A good book for lots of ideas for flowers is Diane Lampe’s Embroidery for all Seasons. She is renowned for her lifelike renditions of flowers – accurate colours and realistic blooms – They look great in the garden settings as well as motifs for Crazy Quilting patches.
The following is how to do a chain stitch/bullion combination. These make lovely sunflowers. I learnt this stitch from the above book (which uses yellows for the sunflower – not the first thread that was at hand like I did.) I would recommend looking at the book if you want to see the stitch looking like a good sunflower, but this should give you the idea!
- Loop the thread under the needle (use a milliner’s needle) as if you are doing a normal detached chain stitch.
- Before you pull the needle through, wrap the thread around the needle, like you do for bullion.
- Holding the wraps with your thumb, pull the needle through the wraps
- Anchor the stitch at the end of the wrap.
- The *finished* flower. This should have at least one more stitch in it, but I ran out of thread!
If you need to know how to make detached chain stitches and bullions check out Inaminuteago Stitch Dictionary.
