Stitch Explorer 2009 - Chicken Scratch - added to Jan 17.

SharonB's choice for the first stitch is Chicken scratch. This is good! I'd been fooling around with it in December and found it so interesting. It's great to have the push to try more. First is my sampler from the end of December. I was experimenting to find out which attempt would have the most impact. I was making a dotee doll. I used white, pink and dark pink threads. I also tested leaving either the white square open, or the darker pink square. I liked the effect of the white square open with the dark pink thread (top right), the pink square open with the white thread (middle of middle row), and the white square open with the white thread (bottom middle), this is the combination I chose. The others blended into the fabric I thought. These are what happened last night. I marked out 1/4" squares and used #5 perle for the stars and #12 for the circles.The woven bit was copied from one of the samples suggested by Sharon. I would like to try more of this weaving. The right hand block below I used 4mm silk ribbon and a few strands of silver for the weaving. I added this photo Jan 17 because it's brighter than the one below it.This piece of gingham has 1/8" squares. The cross stitch is in #12 perle and the weaving #5 with a tiny seed stitch in the middle. This is called diagonal laid filling in my book and looked good in the frame when I'd stitched it, but it collapsed without the hoop. The part I anchored down looks OK, but it didn't have the 3D effect anymore. I think I've made a reasonable start, and any more that I do, I'll add to this post. These photos are all on Flickr where you can see them enlarged. On here I cannot make that happen. On Saturday, 17th Jan, I've added this new bit of stitching. The fabric was marked in 1/4" squares. In every other square I made a cross with cream thread to match the fabric colour. Then I wove four different shades of #5 DMC blue perle. It measures 3" x 2". "Creative Every Day" for Jan 15, 16 & 17.