Last time I shared my stitch-wheel I was still stitching the first ring of leaves. This is the SAL organised by Cathy Reavy, she is releasing videos of new stitches every Thursday, I initially thought we would have one stitch a week so it would last nearly a year, however we seem to be getting two or three stitches a week so I’ve got three weeks worth of stitching to share!. They’re only small blocks though so they don’t take too long. This was the last photo I shared with you…

I’m still not sure about the Lazy Daisy stitch used as a filler stitch for the oak leaf, though it might just be that my sketch didn’t have a pronounced enough shape. The other two new stitches are wheatear which is below the ‘oakleaf’ and Van-Dyke stitch which is the skeletal looking purple one. This is an interesting stitch but I feel the angle is wrong for a leaf

The next ring is all about fillers…

We started off with Jacobean couching which is the heart shaped one, this was quite quick to do as it’s just a cross-hatch of long stitches held in place by tiny cross-stitches at the cross-over points. Long and short stitch seems to be more difficult than it should be, technically it’s simple, but in reality it’s not easy to do well. The purple tulip shape is the long and short stitch.

For the satin stitch I drew a ying yang shape, I found it tricky to get the angle right and despite working an edge stitch it’s not come out as neat as I would have liked. On the other hand I am well chuffed with my padded satin stitch, the big golden sun! There’s three layers of satin stitch making this beautifully domed, I love it!

This week Cathy released another three stitches…

Spiders Web stitch I’ve done several times before on Faby Reilly designs. Seeding stitch I’ve used many times but I didn’t realise you were meant to do tiny double stitches. It actually seemed easier with double stitches as it makes the finished effect more of a square shape which means the randomness of the direction isn’t quite so obvious. Cathy used a flower shape for her sample, I decided to just use the square but try and fade it across.

The last stitch is velvet stitch. It’s based on a cross-stitch with the first ‘leg’ repeated but left in a loop, this is then secured down by the second leg. It’s then a matter of stitching in a grid formation to make a dense area of stitches, this is it before the haircut with lots of loops…

I have to say mine looks more like a shag pile carpet than velvet! This is the wheel so far…

I’m doing a purple, green and amber colour scheme as it’s going to hang in my sewing room afterwards but Cathy has started a facebook group for those stitching the wheel so you can see everyone else’s stitching and colour scheme. One lady has created a colour spectrum around the wheel which looks amazing.

If anyone fancies joining in this SAL, it’s all on YouTube, Cathy (from Threads) releases the next series of videos every Thursday.