Thursday 7 June 2012

Two coloured chain

Yesterday I showed a detail of a two coloured chain stitch which is not the usual Magic Chain stitch. I learnt this neat stitch from Totsuka Embroidery Stitch Book 3 where you can find a lot of variations of the Chain Stitch. In the book there is no name for this stitch, not even in Japanese.

Anyway, I made a simple tutorial:

You need two threads of different colour on your needle.
Take a stem/outline stitch with one thread on each side of the needle.
You get a 'chain stitch' with a link in two colours. Continue stitching in the same way.


Here is another version:
Alternate the placement of the two colours, left and right of the needle.
The chain then looks like this.
Finally I want to show you the traditional Magic Chain stitch. This can often be found in stitch dictionaries:

You start with two threads in two colours.
Place only one thread under the needle and make a chain stitch.
Pull both threads, the blue makes a link in the chain. Next place the yellow thread under the needle.
When you pull both threads this time, it is only the yellow that makes a link. Continue to alter the threads and,  hey presto, you've got a Magic Chain.

I hope this little tutorial was fun and inspiring.







9 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you for a great tutorial. i'll try the various stitches.
irmelin

Marjolein said...

Thank you for sharing. It is much easier than I thought it would be.
The last example was the alternating chain stitch I meant.

Queeniepatch said...

Thank you for your kind words, Marjolein.
Yes, the last example, Magic Chain, can be seen quite often in CQ blocks and it makes a striking line.

City Krafters said...

Thank you for sharing this stitch I hope to try it one day.

uma srinivasan said...

Your tutorial is good.Very good research.
Thanks for visiting my space and for your comments.
http://umacheenu.blogspot.com

Annet said...

Thanks for sharing this! I have never seen this before, it reminds be of the split stitch.

Lakshmi said...

I never tried 2 colours for split stitch.It is really fun. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for visiting my blog and your kind comments!!

Queeniepatch said...

Thank you!
I think TAST is great as we can 'meet' so many needlewomen from around the world and see how the same stitch is used in different countries. In many parts of the world embroidery continue to prosper whereas many cultures have lost the traditional folkcraft. Now there is a new boom and hopefully 'modern' people will find they way back to their roots and/or create new types of embroidery. It is fascinating!

Leelagovind said...

great tutorial queenie..thanks a lot for pointing out the different variations..i never seen this before and hope it mighty be handy anytime..kudos!