TAST week 11 ~ whipped wheel

Happy Saint Patricks Day.

no shamrocks from me today but i do have these happy little 'sunbursts' for you.


the stitch for week 11 with TAST is the whipped wheel.
this is considered a 'woven' stitch as the first layer is made up of stitching that passes through the fabric, but the second (sometimes more) layer is woven in and out of the first layer.

apparently the 'weaving' became part of my whole thought process as i looked for a suitable place to work this stitch. i found an area on my wonderful husband's stocking that held fabrics of a very fragile nature . . . this is part of working with antique textiles and not unexpected. i decided to cover part of this area with closely spaced long stitches creating a sort of warp and began to experiment with weaving on a very small scale. i used a blunt tapestry needle and various threads for the weft part of the weave.  before i knew it i had covered the entire area. it's very primitive but it was interesting to try and i now have a head full of ideas on how i might take this further . . .

once i had that all done i placed some half whipped wheels at regular intervals along the side of the woven area. i used the same light colored thread (used throughout most of my experimental woven 'patch') to create the base of the (half) whipped wheel. this part of the stitch cannot actually be seen as i covered it completely (with a medium weight blueish/purple thread) to continue creating the stitch.

i took things a step further by adding a single colonial knot (using a medium weight turquoise thread) in the center of each of the stitches and then i added more single colonial knots (using two strands of cotton floss in variegated oranges) at the ends of each rib of the wheel. i think they look a bit like a bunting of some sort.

interestingly i have a very good friend who weaves and she frequently shares odd bits of leftover threads with me. all of the threads within today's post (except for the orange cotton floss) are gifted from her.

there are several fun and well done examples of this stitch shown here and here.  i LOVE this wordy idea and my favorite use of this stitch: grapes anyone?

if you think that you may be interested in learning embroidery or practicing the stitches you already know it's well worth a visit to Pin Tangle to join in with this project.


recent gifts include:

• realizing that the 'full circle' can sometimes be a long time in materializing 
• a simple but satisfying dinner eaten quietly at home with my husband
• reading a novel