Chicken Scratch embroidery

This little sweetheart is my great niece Hilary, (my niece Rohanna's daughter, and my sister's grand daughter).  

You'll see another little bit of chicken scratch on her top.  It's the same little French smock pattern that I bought from ChocolatineStudio on Etsy.  

Of course you can use any fabric for the smock, but gingham is the one for chicken scratch.  I found that the gingham squares don't always run straight, so before I cut out the pattern, I match up the squares so that when I embroider, it doesn't go downhill!

Lauren

My sister Helena visiting from New York with Lauren (my grand daughter) in the chicken scratch top I made her for Christmas.

Sewing for grand-daughters...

In my post before Christmas I mentioned that I had been doing some sewing.  I have three grand-daughters, one in Quebec who received the little bag for her birthday in October, and two here.

I started off with some great fabric that Suzie had bought years ago for a baby shower.  She only needed a fat quarter sized piece and had enough left over for a little tunic.  This wasn't a Christmas gift as I had promised to make something of the fabric when she had a daughter.

This was a easy pattern to use, so I made another one from Matheson tartan fabric.  The hem is only tacked.

I love this pattern, it is from the '70s and is only size 2. This one is for Emily also and I'm searching for more small sizes to make this dress for the other two girls.  

The snuggle quilt is for baby Lauren.  I chose ballerina fabric on the fluffy side and blue and silver fairy wands on the back.

And this little smock is for Lauren.  Of course I couldn't stay away from the chicken scratch!  The neck binding is eyelet lace.

It sure was fun sewing these little items.  


Hope you all had a good Christmas.

And have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

Hearts and Flowers

From time to time CQ4Newbies members make a Hearts and Flowers block for a member who is going through a tough time. This is one I did recently. The centre is a chicken scratch heart on gingham.

Chicken scratch tea cosy

No wonder chicken scratch embroidery was so popular back when. It's so easy, works up quickly and looks nice when it's finished. Here's yet another tea cosy. I did a different pattern on each of the two fronts. To see my other chicken scratch, click on "chicken scratch" in the label box below. There's also a tutorial for making this tea cosy. Click on the sidebar label for "tea cosy tutorial" It's basically made from four square blocks, the crazy quilt ones were, but this was made from one big oblong. Added August 16, 2009. In my sidebar I have a gaget called "Feejit" that tracks visitors to my blog. I've noticed in the last few days that I have many, many visitors who are coming directly to this post on Chicken Scratch. I'd be interested to know where you made the connection. If you like you could leave me a message on this post please.

More chicken scratch

Chicken scratch has been a great first technique to experiment with in SharonB's Stitch Explorer 2009. I tried lots of variations which you can find in previous posts or on my Flickr site. Since I'm on the "tea cosy" wagon right now I decided to make a tea cosy with some chicken scratch decoration. It is the four-square design again. And this is the basic chicken scratch stitch on this square except that I have switched colours on the inner and outer rows. This is the front. And this will be the back. Another basic stitch. This side needs another round of stitching. These designs work up really quickly and are very effective. I like the contrast of the navy and white on the pale blue gingham.

Another go at Chicken Scratch

I couldn't get anything to work on that multicoloured squared fabric I mentioned in the previous post, so I gave up on it. I worked on the 1/8" green gingham and this is how it turned out:

The weaving part in the daisies would have looked nice in yellow. The darker weaving is a sage green.

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.

Chicken Scratch & Dotee #5

I did get the wrapping done, and of course, there was time for one more dotee!!! I'm fascinated by this "chicken scratch" embroidery on gingham, and you'll see that #5 Dotee's body is all that. But before I started her I did a bit of practice using different colour threads (all #8 perle), and using the white square on the gingham as the centre the first time, and the darkest pink square the next. I tried white, pink and darker pink threads.My favourite is the top left where I used white thread and the white square was left open.The one next to it, top middle is my second choice: white thread and the darkest pink square was left open. The two pale pink tries don't have much impact because the colour of the thread matches the colour of the pink gingham. The darker pink thread - the two samples on the right - give a nice impact too. It worked up very quickly, and I found that it was much easier and neater when I used a small hoop.

Sewing instead of Shopping

I should be out doing the last of my shopping, but I had the urge to try a dotee doll. Here she is:I used gingham for the bottom half and tried some "chicken scratch" embroidery. Chicken Scratch is also called Depression Lace, Gingham Lace or Snowflake Embroidery. I've used a cross stitch, straight stitch and a woven circle stitch. I've seen some projects that have used the gingham squares for a counted cross stitch design.