Tutorial: Turkey Work

Today I am showing you how to do Turkey work, both cut and uncut turkey works.
For this you need plastic Tongue cleaner, wool, big eyed blunt needle(which are used in ribbon work/kamal work) and matty( aida) cloth.

You can see my turkey work projects here.

matty/aida cloth

Tongue cleaners

I usually use this matty for turkey work

 .

Start working from top of the design.
Bring down  the needle from left hole of aida and pass it to the right hole of the aida

 ..and pull the needle leaving the tail of about 1cm.

 Then pass the needle from right to left hole like in the picture..

and pull it through like in back stitch

Now place the tongue cleaner horizontally along the working row and hold it under your thumb.

 Holding T.C under your thumb wrap the wool around T.C and then make back stitch in the next  hole like in the picture

 then without wrapping the T.C make back stitch from next hole. This makes the loop sit firmly. There complets one turkey knot.

 Again wrap the wool on T.C and make a back stitch . Make one more back stitch without wrapping the T.C. Like this complete one row. after completing the row of turkey knots pull off the T.C.
Leave next row of holes in the aida and start with the third row, otherwise the  stitches will be dense.
Mark the working row like in picture because sometimes T.C slip down and you may work on next lines( i always face this problem)

complete all the rows

This is uncut Turkey work

To make it more puffy cut the loops like in the picture.

 This is cut Turkey work.
I love cut turkey work.











I have tried Turkey work on even fabric without using T.C.

cut turkey work

uncut Turkey work