What is chicken scratch embroidery, you may ask? It’s embroidery done on gingham fabric, geneally with a cross-stitch, which is sometimes laced or woven together. This is my Chicken Scratch Pincushion from a tutorial by Blair Stocker, another class from my week-long retreat of Making Zen.
Searching through my fabric stash, the only piece I had with gingham checks is this one with hearts in the center of alternate white checks. However, it wasn’t until I began stitching that I realized the blue borders made the checks larger and too far apart for the pattern! SO, I compromised by making blue cross stitches in the plain white checks, then went back with the yellow floss to make cross stitches in the tiny blue squares at the intersection of each blue border. The tiny crosses are the ones that I wove together. It turned out better than I’d expected, with yellow squares around each heart and octagons surrounding each blue cross. Pretty!
Along the way, I also discovered that I have some true gingham in yellow, so perhaps I’ll make this again some time. The pincushion is meant to be inserted into the top of a small teacup or other vessel; I did not have such so opted to use a small tin can, which I covered with the same fabric. Of course I had to finish it off with a touch of lace, too. EnJoy!
Fiber Fancies 