... Oh, I could go on for hours, on this one... but I won't.

1. Do you like to use specialty stitches when you stitch?
Oh my yes, I love specialty stitches. They add such dimension and texture to a piece. And I love band samplers that are almost all specialty stitches, with just a little standard cross stitch. Like Jeannette Douglas' 'Bug Collector' - that's got to be my favorite piece of all. So far. There's also the Tranquility Sampler that someone sent to me as a surprise (I'm still in awe of that).

2. Can you do a perfect French knot?
Can *you* do a perfect colonial knot? I can. I use that instead of a French knot. Or I use beads. And I know a lot of people reading this fall back on beads as an alternate instead of learning a different (and easier, in my opinion) knot that is a perfect substitute for a French knot.

3. What is your favourite stitch?
Waffle stitch... done in Needle Necessities Calypso. See Bug Collector for the line of them. They're sooooo gorgeous when done with just the right threads. There are some really nice pulled thread stitches that I want to experiment further with before I put them ahead of the waffle. Rhodes butterflies are up there too. I LOVE Rhodes Butterflies... especially done in a nice spring-like variegated color... oooooo.

4. Are you currently working on any projects with specialty stitches and if so which ones?
Desiderata and Butterfly Garden are the ones that come immediately to mind. I don't think that anything else I'm working on requires more than a French knot (which will be a colonial instead). I am designing a few band samplers that will be entirely specialty stitches, and I hope to launch those before my 33rd birthday. I just have to find the time to stitch them first, so I can't officially call them WIPs yet.

5. Name a specialty stitch you would most love to learn how to do.
Bullion Roses/Bullion Knots. They're the only things that scare me even with documentation as to how to do them. Everything else? Just set me down with a couple of books that have pretty pictures on how to do the stitch, and leave me alone for about a half hour. I'll have read everything twice, and have practiced at least 2 of the stitches by the time you return. They may not be the prettiest examples of the stitch, but they set me on my way to doing them.

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I employ copies of Eileen Bennet's stitching notebooks, Janice Love's hardanger basics books, and the Embroidery Stitch Bible to keep me on the straight course for completing a stitch that I'm not familiar with. So far, I've been undeterred from anything but those Bullion knots. But then, I've only sat down to try them once, instead of the half hour of silence method either, and I haven't *needed* to try them for a piece I want to do....

...I promise, however, I'll try to do them soon.