100 Stitches - Zig-Zag Coral Stitch

Here is the Zig-Zag Coral Stitch. This is the latest stitch on my attempt to work through 100 Stitches! I used my brand new floss for this stitch:
It is perle cotton DMC #335. Isn't it beautiful? I bought this last week... along with some other items that I will show a bit later. But now onto the stitching! For this demonstration I am using the #24 chenille needle. You might also notice I already have two parallel lines drawn on my fabric. Hopefully, this will keep my stitches in line as I demonstrate. My practice stitching was all over the place! This stitch is done from right to left. The first step of the stitch is exactly like the coral stitch. You come up through your fabric, and then keeping the floss in place you slide your needle under the floss without catching it and bring the tip of the needle over the floss, forming a loop: Then you pull the floss all the way through forming a raised knot:
Here is where it turns into the zig-zag coral stitch. You now bring your floss over to the other parallel line at a bit of a diagonal and you slip the needle under the floss and then over the floss, again forming a loop:
Pull the floss through forming another raised knot:

then go back to the first line and form a regular coral stitch knot and just continue back and forth along your stitching line:
Until you have a nice line of stitches!
This was a fairly easy stitch for me to learn, I love the finished line of stitching - it looks like lacing. This stitch is #55 and is in the knotted stitch category of 100 Stitches.

Color - little flower project

The floss pictured here is DMC# 340. Do you like this tint of blue:

with this tint of yellow - DMC #727:
with this tint of red DMC #603?
According to my new color wheel - a "tint" is a pure color (in this case blue, yellow, and red) with white added to it. These three tints are three colors apart from each other on the color wheel. This means they are a triad and make a beautiful color combination. I used them on this little flower stitching. You may also notice, I am showing off my open chain stitch for the picture border!

100 Stitches - Open Chain Stitch

Time to share the latest stitch I have learned from 100 Stitches. As I have learned the hard way, some stitches require precise guidelines to help with stitch width and stitch size consistency. This is definitely one of those stitches!
Using a ruler and a pencil with a light colored lead, I drew two parallel lines. I made my two lines 1/4" apart. The first step is to come up through your fabric at the start of the line on the left side.

Pull your floss all the way through and then hold it down against the fabric, right where it came out, so that it stays in place. Now push the needle down into the fabric on the start of the line on the right side. Bring the needle tip out on the left side line, making sure the floss stays under the needle tip:

Pull the floss all the way through. This will form a loop - make sure you don't pull tightly:

Now your floss is back on the left side, just like when you started out. Just make the same stitch as before - push your needle in on the right side, bring the needle tip out on the left side:

Pull through forming the loose loop:

And then back in on the right, out on the left side:
Just keep stitching in that same way until you have a beautiful stitched line. To finish, make a small stitch at each side of the final loop.
Like a lot of these stitches, the underside of the stitching is almost as interesting as the topside!

This stitch is much easier to understand by looking at the pictures than it is by reading the explanation. It took me a bit of practice, but now I really like stitching with it. That beautiful floss I used is dmc #4240 color variations perle cotton floss. This stitch is #42 and is in the linked stitches section of 100 Stitches.

A little early for this wip...

Even though we are having beautiful warm weather right now, I am busily stitching up a huge set of autumn napkins!

I plan on using all the autumn colors like orange, red, yellow, and brown. I love these two shades of orange. The brightest, which is outlining this leaf is the almost neon-bright dmc#608 "bright orange":

I am going to use a running stitch to decorate the hems. Here are orange, green and yellow:

I am really liking the way they are turning out!

Color - my new color wheel!

I love the fact that embroidery floss comes in such a huge variety of colors. I know that one of my favorite parts of embarking on a new stitching project is the process of selecting colors. I want to learn more about color theory and color relationships and so I bought this color wheel. It is so much fun to use and has so many interesting color facts and advice. For instance, I have this little stitching project from "Shhh...Baby's Sleeping":
What colors to use? I know I want to use this beautiful blue as this is for a baby boy.
According to the color wheel, a nice relationship would be a triad of colors. That means three colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel and will always look pleasing as a combination:

So the other two colors in the blue triad are red:
and yellow:

I think that makes a beautiful color combination!

I am using the blue to outline the ball in back stitch:
and red for the stripes - I used the split stitch here:

now all three colors for the french knots and
satin stitch stars!

I think I am really going to enjoy this new color wheel and all the new color combinations it suggests! Speaking of color, I have to include this picture of my sweet pea bouquet looking so pinky and beautiful on my shelf!

100 Stitches - Closed Buttonhole Stitch

Here is my version of the Closed Buttonhole Stitch!
This stitch is the next stitch on my 100 Stitches list. Here are three of my practice lines of stitching...I had a lot of trouble with spacing, floss tension, and consistent stitch sizes:
I started with 100% cotton, quilting weight fabric. I used a #24 chenille needle and dmc #4240 color variations perle cotton floss.
Step one is to come up through your fabric:

Now go back down through the fabric above where your floss came out, but at a slant back towards where your floss came out:

Bring your needle back out right next to where you first came up through the fabric. Notice in the picture - make sure the floss is UNDER your needle:
Pull the needle all the way through:

Now go back to the top of the stitch and go back into the fabric at a slant, this time slanting in the opposite direction:
Bring the needle out - and make sure the floss is under the needle again:
Pull the needle all the way through:
And go back into the fabric again at a slant:

Come back out, keeping the floss under the needle:
Pull through:
Onto the next slant- remember, keep the floss under the needle:
and just continue on:
I love the color variation floss - it makes this row of stitching look so interesting! This stitch is easy to learn and do, and I think I am doing it correctly, but I just can't seem to make it look right. 100 Stitches describes this stitch as being stitches made in pairs that form triangles. Mine sort of look like triangles! I think one mistake I made was not drawing stitching lines. I should have put a double row of stitching lines to mark the top and bottom of each stitch. As far as the floss tension goes, I don't know what I am doing wrong. The stitches look too loose to me! One interesting thing about this stitch, is how good the back looks!
This stitch is #24 and is in the looped stitches section of 100 Stitches.