Stitching Talavera: A Basketweave Mini-Tutorial

I've shown this cross on the other blog, as an example of what a difference using Kreinik blending filament can make - and now that I'm stitching it, thought it might be a good one to show a bit of basketweave that seems to confuse people who aren't totally familiar with it yet.

This piece is also the subject of my tutorial on "Creative Needling" a design, as I made a much smaller cross from a big one in my file. Getting started, I rarely paint canvases I'm going to stitch for myself - and especially working on this one with the navy background! Hard on the eyes, it is.


Anyway, the vertical arrow is pointing to where I have the needle inserted, ready to take the next stitch traveling "up the stairs" to the end of the row - worked on the WEFT stitches, which are dips.

The upper arrow demonstrates where I stopped at the angle where the arm of the cross starts, as I couldn't continue downward at that point. I had started stitching in the corner of the arm - the upper right corner, so after traveling up and down for a few rows, it will meet the spot where I stopped stitching.

This way, the row going UP will be one smooth, long row. This is another of the reasons one should ALWAYS adhere to stitching up on the weft, and down on the warp - as two rows going the same direction will look really awful on the surface of the work. You can see this more clearly on the close-up - the cross itself is outlined first with navy Kreinik #12 braid in the 018HL. It looks great against the almost matte finish of the cotton floss (DMC)


I also outlined the design elements with the metallic braid, and then stitched the floss around them - it shows up well!! I didn't do that around the green things, though, as it would have been too busy. Perle cotton (DMC) is used on the red flower, and if you look closely, you can see the Kreinik blending filament twinkling on a few stitches on the yellow and green parts.

I've worked a lot more on this one, and tomorrow, if there's a bit of time, I'll show the result on the other blog - and show what a wonderful thing the blending filament is! Great effects.