We did sampler no. 4 on Aida fabric, a fabric I’d not stitched on since Regan was president. I don’t love it, because it reminds me of my cross stitching past, but it was very handy for gridding out all these filling stitches.
Unlike the last sampler, I’m quite pleased at the colors I chose.
Here we have Hungarian stitch and cushion stitch. Hungarian stitch, the first one, turned out to be my favorite. I used twelve strands, not liking how it looked with six strands, and it was a thumb killer, but look how great it looks! Unfortunately, cushion stitch came early on and I wasn’t sure what to do if the pattern didn’t perfectly repeat, so some letters are a little short.
Next are raised stem band stitch and fern stitch. Raised stem band stitch was quick, but I didn’t like how it was a bit wavy in places. Fern stitch was my second favorite, looks-wise.
The last two are tied gobelin stitch and French stitch. I liked the complexity of tied gobelin stitch and how firm it was, plus it had such good coverage. Shannon pointed out that French stitch should be called vulva stitch, and that made me laugh. With the number of strands I was using it wasn’t quite so obvious, but it for sure looked like it in her example stitches.
I outlined everything in backstitch and that took forever and used a lot of thread, but was worth it in the end, I think.
And here is the back, because it’s fun to look at the backs of things. Aside from raised stem band stitch (the red and pink one) being wavy, it also had those long runners on the back I didn’t like.
The next sampler will not be as intensive. This did take a bit of time. But was well worth it.