The TAST stitch for week 11 is whipped wheel. I repeated a woven and whipped wheel I stitched on a crazy ornament a few years ago. It was a present for a quilting friend, so I only had a photo to see how I did it. I couldn’t find my notes (I had no journal at the time), but when I started stitching I remembered how I stitched it. First I drew 3 circles with a water soluble pen on my rust dyed fabric. The sizes are 3, 2 and 1 cm. This template made it very easy. I used a DMC broder special for my wheel. First I made 8 spokes from the outmost circle to the centre. Then 8 spokes between them from the outmost circle to the 1 cm circle. And finally 16 spokes between those from the outmost circle to the 2 cm circle. I started with a whipped wheel. When the first circle was filled with whipped stitches I switched to woven stitches. If you’re not familiar with the woven wheel, you can find a tutorial in Sharon’s stitch dictionary. Start weaving under the new spokes to keep the stitches in place. I know they always say you need an odd number of spokes with a woven wheel, but with a simple trick you can use an even number. After completing every round, just go under 2 spokes instead of 1 and continue weaving the normal way. This shifts one spoke every round and is not visible when the wheel is finished. After a few rounds I switched to whipped spokes again until I finished the second circle. Then I made a few rounds of woven stitches and finished it with whipped stitches. I hope to share a photo of my sampler tomorrow, it’s still wet after removing the water soluble pen.
