Embroidery How To: Chain Stitch

Welcome back everyone! Here is another great embroidery stitch for you to try out, Chain Stitch! This stitch is great for outlining when you want a more decorative look than a straight or back stitch. It's also really easy to do, and once you practice a little it isn't too difficult to get a chain stitch that looks quite uniform.

I was feeling a little fancy for this tutorial and wanted to try out some metallic thread. This is a very fine braid metallic thread from Kreinik Threads, and it great for hand embroidery (but it would also work in a machine).

Next, I traced a curvy line onto my fabric. Chain stitch is great because it easily goes around curves as well as straight lines, while still looking uniform and flowing well in your work. If you are just starting out, you may just want to try a straight line as a stitch sample, but I would definitely recommend trying out some curves as well.

Start your stitch by pulling your thread through your fabric back to front, as shown in the image above.

Next, you will complete a single chain "loop" by pushing your needle back through the fabric at your initial starting point (or very close to it), and bringing the needle back up through the fabric at point 3- a little farther down your pattern or practice line. Pull your thread taught, but not too tight, to create a nice little loop! Now step 3 in the diagram above becomes the beginning of your next loop. Continue on until you have finished your practice line.

On the final chain loop, you will pass your needle back through the fabric from front to back securing your chain "loop" and be able to tie off the thread or weave it in neatly.

What stitches would you like to see next?


Threads for this post were provided by Kreinik Threads. Manufactured in Parkersburg, WV.

Embroidery How To: Cross Stitch

This installment of the embroidery tutorial series is Cross Stitch. I really like cross stitching because you don't need to transfer your design directly to the fabric, you can follow a printed or on screen pattern that is blocked out in the different colors you are using (basically like looking at a pixelated image or 8-bit video game graphic). This tutorial shows how to make a single Cross Stitch, as well as how to do several same-colored stitches in a row.

First, cross stitch is generally done on a specific cross stitch fabric , as show above. The weave of these fabrics makes it easy to see perfect squares, and the corners of these squares, where your stitches will start and end.

Start your stitch by pulling the needle through your fabric at one of the little corner holes, back to front (as shown above). It doesn't matter of you start at the top or bottom, as long as you keep your stitches uniform (if you start in the top corner, start all of your stitches in the top corner). This helps keep the back neat and avoid extra knotting while you stitch.

Next, complete the first part of your stitch by passing your needle through the hole located diagonal from your starting corner.

This will give you the fist part of your cross stitch (a diagonal line) as shown above.

To complete your single cross stitch, you will make another diagonal stitch that crosses over the first. As most cross stitch patterns don't have a lot of floating single stitches, you will generally work in lines of stitches instead. This process is shown below.

As you can see in the photo above, when making a row of stitches, you make the first diagonal stitch of your cross all the way down the line before making the second crossed stitch. This helps for a couple of reasons: it keeps the back of your work looking neater, and it help you to be able to quickly and easily count your stitches in your pattern.

I work my stitch lines from left to right initially, so when I make the "cross" stitch going back I work right to left. This makes it so you start and end in about the same place. You can then either tie a know and cut your ends, or weave the ends into your back stitches neatly.

Above you can see the back side of my row of stitches, a nice neat row of parallel stitches with my edges ready to be tied or weaved.

Cross stitch is a great stitch for making items like this, and you can easily use patterns from Perler beads to create sewn items instead. Cross stitch is also great to use with plastic canvas to make ornaments.

Straight Stitched Placemat

Here is a little project you can try using the Straight Stitch tutorial from Friday. If placemats aren't your thing, you can easily adapt the same concept to a pillowcase, tote bag, tea towels, etc.

To start you will need:

A piece of fabric sized to your project.
A needle
Thread or Embroidery Floss in as many colors as you like
Scissors

Decide how much of a straight stitch "pattern" you want on your fabric. I decided I Would like a placemat that had stitched stripes down just one side, but you can do what you think works best. I chose 3 colors of six strand embroidery floss and alternated them to create my pattern. I left about 4-5 inches of thread at the start and end of my stitched rows to tie off at the end instead of knotting each strand before sewing. Play around a little and see what works for you, if you are just starting out it may be easiest to tie knots at the end of your thread before you begin sewing.

After my stitches were all done, I tied 2 threads together as shown above so my stitches won't come out of my final project. I find this leave me with fewer and smaller knots that don't affect the appearance of my projects as much, but again different people like different things.

As you can see, my stitches vary in length and the rows aren't perfectly spaced, I happen to like this more organic look and think it's charming in a hand made detail. The more rows of stitches you add, the more textural your project will be. It's always great to have things around that are not only pretty to look at, but that you also want to touch and use.

At the last minute I decided I want to try to find an orange patterned fabric for the backing of this, so it is sadly sitting unfinished on my table, but to finish this you would stitch your 2 pieces (same size) together with right sides touching (pretty sides together) with a sewing machine on 3 sides, then turn it right side out before stitching the 4th side shut. I generally top stitch the outside edge of my placemats as well to help them keep their shape and lay flat.

Enjoy your stitching practice!

Embroidery How To: Split Stitch

It has been awhile since my last embroidery tutorial, but here is a new stitch for you to try out- the Split Stitch!

Split stitch is another great stitch to use for embroidering lines or outlining shapes in your embroidery work. Start by pulling your thread through your fabric from back to front.

Next, you will close your stitch by sewing back through your fabric from front to back. It is important to choose the length of your stitches carefully, you want to make sure to keep individual stitches as uniform as possible (I generally like a shorter stitch, but each project varies).

Then, make your second stitch by pushing your needle up through the center of your first stitch, splitting the first stitch with your second. You want to split the stitch both lengthwise and widthwise (6 strand embroidery floss is necessary as you can easily keep 3 strands on each side of your needle while stitching, and you must be able to pull your stitches through your floss). Continue along your pattern (or just freehand straight lines for practice) and continue making equal length stitches for a uniform look.

Your stitch will end up looking like a small braid (it resembles a mini chain stitch--coming soon). This is a great option for people who find something like backstitch to look too plain in their work.