Erica; Chains; 113; Erica: Chains

I'm about to bring you some of the secrets of the mysterious chain stitch. Who knows when somebody's first thought of looping us read through another to form a chain. Maybe it was in the mists before history. That means nobody knows when. But at any rate they've been doing it in India for thousands of years and they're still doing it today. You see my drifts is done in tiny chain stitches in silk in lovely art and silk with touches of magenta Deep Purple wool material. And it was just recently done in India and so women's shoes. Then a green silk with black outlines on red morocco leather. And he has a magnificent skin. With the sort of paisley design in quite big chains did. You see.

Materials are so inexpensive in India and expensive in India and labor is so terribly cheap that they simply used all sorts of scraps of red cloth. Probably all colors and threw them into the dye pot to make them the same red laid them down and then chain stitched over the whole thing. When I look very closely at the skirt it was all patchwork with the raw edges covered up by the close stitching on the top wonderfully. One of the really fascinating things about chains to sew is its variety of texture. It's simply fascinating to see how a very fine chain stitch looks on a very old piece of red cloth. This is a traditional Indian piece which is being stitched onto a suede to form a handbag. In contrast with this other handbag which is in thick rug

wool and it's done with lines of chain stitch back and forth making the circles of the flaws and then the whole thing is kind of felted by being. Knitted very closely together so it gives an overall of A. Shop effect to the silhouettes. One of the fascinating things that really started the whole rage of crew you know in the 17th century both in England and in America where the Indian tree of life designs and they were usually done in chain very very fine day and silk. This one is quite a coarse wool piece but it shows you how interesting it can be to get a difference of texture. He has a very heavy solidly work Flocka And over here a crisscrossing pattern which gives an open effect in the different texture. And there are some little flowers over here with spots.

The chance to just been worked around in little circles so that it fills in the area with the light open Patton. I thought a sampler of chain stitch like that might be rather fun for you to try. So I just sketched out on an open piece of cloth some of those leaves and flowers like the Indian designs. You can do chain stitch easily in your hand. If you want to you can do it in a frame but it's one of those few stitches that really is almost faster. If you do it so ing it in your hand. You go right back into the stitch that you just have taken right inside the loop. Put your thumb on the thread. And pull it tight. Really are wrapping that thread underneath the needle.

I don't want to get sewn into my little bubbles here but some people think that they mustn't go inside the loop that they must go outside it to make a proper chain because they're afraid if they pull the whole thing will disappear if they go back into the same hole where they just came up. Well of course that would happen if you don't put shelf thumb on the loo and come up with the needle right inside it. If you do a few chain stitches and they seem to be a little on the evening. You can pull a little tightly. If you have rather a big stitch and then you can leave. A little stitch rather loose and you'll find it comes out evenly. But the main thing is as you sew way you develop a rhythm and you get a rather nice.

Even this. Anyway. Quite naturally. Don't forget to go right down in the same hoe that you came up and pull the loop flap so that it doesn't fly up in the air and get away from you. When you want to and off go down outside the loop that holds the last loop flat and then you can fast enough. On the wrong side with two or three stitches into the back of the last itches you've just made. When you take a new stitch. Come up into that loop. Right inside it. With your new thread. And go right back again into the same hoe and continue on and nobody will know. Where your jog was. Because it's continually looping the loop. And making a chain. Chanced it does have a direction to it. In other words you can see whether the

stitches were all worked in the same way. I started this leaf in light green here went down to the end to the tip and then started the medium color. Next door to it at the base and also the duck so that all ran from the bottom of the leaf to the tip and that gives a smoother effect than over here. Where I went round and round inside the leaves. I wanted this to look like a rough texture because it's all in one flat color and I thought it would look more interesting if the stitches were worked round rug. Here it's just a single line so that you have a nice contrast between the solid and the open fillings. You can do all sorts of things. You can put. Different colored things inside the leaves. You can do criss cross lines across your shapes. Here I put some little crosses. In chain stitch and I meant

originally to put a Venn dot in the middle of that leaf and then I changed my mind. But I drew the design with one of those watercolor pens and if the background linen is washable you can throw the whole thing into a tub of cold water and wash it just like a sweater. It won't come to any harm. But here is another version of chain stitch. This is an Indian rug. Down. In Kashmir. The men work on these rags exclusively. They sit in large rooms each with a rug cross-legged on the flaw. Making them in tiny tiny chain stitches on heavy linen. This pattern must have been sent out from Europe because Or from here it's rather a French design like an oval self. But this is an original Indian Pattern a flowering garden of

lovely blue and cream colored flowers on a red ground. And a magnificent deep blue border to set the whole thing off. It's rather fun to look at the background to both these rugs have different ways of filling in the shapes. I don't know if you can see over here this is all worked around in little scroll designs. And the other one is just perfectly. Filled in. Just as you want to working your way around. Well I thought it would probably take you a thousand years to do a very fine rag like that but you could work quite a big bold path and which would be really exciting on a double threat of heavy lifting. I mean two layers of very heavy linen. And the surprise about this is that the speediest way of doing it is to work with a crochet hook.

It takes a little bit of practice. But once you get going you can do it so quickly it's absolutely magnificent. You plunge the crochet hook down into the material and pull it sharply through holding the thread at the back so that you can catch it up in a loop. Then you go through again. And bring that loop up from the back. You have to work on an embroidery frame of course. It has to be pulled very tightly. Stretch it so that the material. Won't have any give in it because you want to pull shoplifts through. So that you can catch that loop. But something on the basis of a hook drug in a way. This rug that I making so it would be very nice to have a border of these flaws with the brown background. And then in the

middle and into lacing Patton. You can join it too because if you. Take several pieces of linen and work each of them with your chance to Ching you can join the linen and then it won't show up when you stitch right over the Jordans. I'd like to show you what happens on the wrong side so that you could see what I was doing. And a nice the frame. Here I am holding this thread and then crochet hooks going to come through from the back. Now wrap it round the hook wrap the thread around the hook. And pull it. Dive through again. Wrap it round the hook. The whole secret of it is the tension the way you hold that thread as it goes round the hook. Pull it sharply through. I'm

taking huge enormous stitches but it will show you what I mean. Pull hard on the thread and back on the needle. And then. You can hook each loop through the previous one. There's one other marvelous thing about this. If you don't like what you've done if the direction seems wrong all the stitches seem a little large. Watch what happens out it comes. It's really. Quite fascinating because although it takes very little time to put in it takes even less to take it out. I was going to work these flowers. With bread. That's the best way to start out planning your flowers first. Then fill it in with a cream color. Or a pale.

Pale peach in this case and then. Fill in your HO background. Whichever direction you'd like. In a dark brown to set off the glowing red of the flowers. You see the background here and you go chain stitching and then you go up under this flag and over here and over to the stem and get smaller and smaller concentric because. When you finish you put the thread up. As I showed you before. And take in the thread it and take it down through the loop and fasten it off. Well the time has come. But you can see. You can put it in and take it out as quickly. So I do hope you have

looping the loop.