Take a Stitch Tuesday 2012- week 15

Stem Stitch (and whipped stem stitch and outline stitch as well...): 

I suppose one parallel set should be called outline stitch because they twist in the opposite direction to the other but, to be honest, I don't really know what it means to "keep the thread to the left" ... or "... to the right". I just keep the twist going in the same direction. Gets a little messy when the curves are sharp but there you are --- that's what you get when you have a self-taught embroiderer and I learned stem stitch way back in my crewel days!  I "whipped" the outside rows with a darker blue so while it may not be obvious, I actually did three different stitches! LOL

Couldn't really see filling up an entire band with rows of stem stitch, though, so I played with a little free-form on the right hand side, and threw in some French knots and some satin stitch too, 'cause if you remember, last Saturday, I said I wanted to do more with the satin stitch...

More GAST threads --- Old Blue Paint for the band stitches on the left, with Brethren Blue for the whipping; in the free form piece - Butternut Squash and Buckeye Scarlet  for the little satin stitch flowers, Old Blue Paint and Butternut Squash for the little stem-stitched blue "flower", and Blue Spruce, Shutter Green, Green Pasture, Forest Glade and Brethren Blue for the stem stitches "stems"!