Buttonhole Combo I

I have had the luxury of a day to stitch, so I have dived right into Sharon's Stitch Files. She has released Buttonhole Stitch, Herringbone and Backstitch. Right now I have decided that what really interests me is stitch combinations - taking one of the basic stitches and value-adding. I might occasionally use some small beads, but what I really want to do is seams, in stitches, without add-ons.

But my problem is that I am still using really basic versions of the first basic stitch, and relying on the later bits for the variety. So I thought this might make me seek a little more variety.

I use Buttonhole a lot, especially to edge the Apple Blossom Quilt blocks, but could use it more. So I tried Sharon's "double two-up, two-down", to give it a name. I am a bit short of unembellished seams at the minute, so my first attempt was across a large naked patch on the Pansy Vest. It suffered a bit in the centre, so next time I would lay down a chain first, and stitch either side.

This was the second attempt, where I actually found a naked seam.

It could be interesting to try offsetting the legs, so the short were opposite the long - could make it look a bit twisted.

And all this has made me rearrange my flickr photos. I now have sets on there for my combinations of Featherstitch (I like that one), Herringbone (I love that one, but need to scan more examples), and Buttonhole.