Friday, June 22, 2007

TAST 25 Long and Short Stitch

In my stumpwork projects I often use long and short, or at least a reasonable approximation, for shading and filling petals and leaves and such. So I thought I'd try doing counted long and short to get a real feel for the stitch. I also wanted to experiment with colours and shading so I made a rainbow band of sorts. I had a harder time than I expected getting four shades of the same sort of colour, I guess that means I need to add to my stash:-) But it was very interesting to see how the shades worked together or in some cases didn't - although I guess it would depend on the look you were going for. The small red sample is done with 2 strands of overdyed silk. I love this colour and I love the way the shading works. It would be quite different with satin stitch covering the same area so I can see the use for this stitch with overdyed threads as well.

Below is a stumpwork version of the watercolour 'portrait' of Jane Austen done by her sister Cassandra. which I have stitched using long and short.

5 comments:

Ati said...

How beautiful !! this is what I expect from an embroiderer :))
I will never become so good, my patient is not that great.

Conni said...

What lovely work!

Doreen G said...

Fantastic work Margaret and so much stitching in the bottom one but it was worth it.

Barbara B. said...

Hello, your stitching is verry beautiful. I like iit!

MeganH said...

What an interesting thing to do with the counted l&s stitch.

It sounds like a good thing to do at the beginning of a project to see how the colours would all work together.

Great shading on the lady, btw