Christmas Embroidery School - Lesson Two

Today we continue to fill in the wedges at the bottom of the ornament and then start to fill up the horizontal spaces from the bottom up.

Closed Fly Stitch

Use 4 strands of floss. Bring the needle up from the back at the top center of the wedge. Make a simple straight stitch and then bring the needle back up to the top left corner.

Insert the needle at the top right corner and back to the front at the bottom of the straight stitch. Wrap the floss behind the needle and pull through. Make another small straight stitch.

 Repeat the V stitch.

Continue making small straight stitches and V stitches to make the closed fly stitch. They will become smaller as you move down the wedge.

Open Chain Stitch

Open chain is worked pretty much like chain stitch is, except the loops are held open and wide and boxy rather than seed-shaped. 

Use 4 strands of floss. Bring the needle up at the bottom of the first chain and to one side and bring it down right across at the other side.

Bring the needle back up on the first side (in this case the left) where the next chain will begin.

Insert the needle at the top right of the loop, along the right hand line. Bring it back up to catch the loop again on the right.

Pull it through and continue making these boxy stitches along the lines and all the way across the ornament.

Satin Stitch

This use of satin stitch is pretty easy because it's simply every other open chain that is being filled and each one takes only a few stitches to fill.

Satin stitch is a series of straight stitches made very closely together to fill in an area.

Use 4 strands of floss. Bring the thread up at the bottom left corner of one of the open chain boxes.

Insert the needle at the top left and make a straight stitch. 
 

Continue to lay these stitches right next to each other to fill the box.

Fill every other box for a candy cane look.
 

Whipped Chain Stitch 

Whipped chain stitch is made of two parallel lines of chain stitch that are connected by a simple whip stitch.

Use 4 strands of floss. Make the first line of chain stitches. Bring the thread from the back at the bottom left of the area. Insert the needle just to the right next to the original stitch and bring it back up the length of the chain you will make. Wrap the floss to the back and pull through.

Insert the needle just to the right of where the floss comes through and set up another chain. Pull it through.

Continue making chains to the end of the space.
 

Make another line of chains parallel to the first. Make sure the stitches match up next to each other.
 

Use 4 strands of floss. Bring the second color from the back of the fabric at the bottom center of the first chain stitch on the left. Thread the needle through the two inner threads of the side-by-side chains and pull through.

 Continue to whipstitch the chains together down the entire row.

 Stay tuned for more tomorrow!