This is the last day of the sampler making. You should be proud that you made time for yourself. Time to hold something creative in your hands. Time for making.
Embroidery School has one more week. We have to learn how to prepare our work for framing or how to display in the hoop. And we have to learn things like washing stitched work. There's a bit more to learn.
But let's wait no more for the last three stitches!
Satin Stitch
Satin stitch is used mainly as a fill in stitch. It's provide a solid coverage of specified area. Sometimes satin stitch is bordered with an outline stitch, such as back stitch, but not always. Inside a large outline, the stitches are staggered but here we'll start simple.
I used 3 strands for this stitch. Basically you're working back and forth along the outline, filling it in with straight stitches.
Bring the needle to the front at one end corner of the outline. Insert the needle on the other side of the shape and lay down a stitch. Lay down another one right next to it.
Continue filling in the shape this way until you reach the end. Pull the last stitch through and knot or hide the thread.
When shapes are not squared off, the stitches that are laid down in their rows may be of differing lengths so they fill and match the shape.
The arrow is filled with stitches of decreasing size until the last stitch (the point) which I made horizontally into the last small vertical stitch.
Seed Stitch
Oh boy! Little seeds on the ground! This couldn't be any easier. This is just a whole lot of running stitches, but teeny, teeny, tiny ones!
I worked some of these with 4 strands and some with two to give it some texture.
Back of the work. You can't make it any neater.
Stem Stitch
The lines on the pattern are there to show you how the stitches are overlapping. But to stitch it, imagine and follow a straight line right through. I used 3 strands, but in hindsight, I would recommend 4 strands to completely cover the transfer image.
Bring the threaded needle up from the back at one end of the line. Insert it into the fabric at the end of the stitch and pull through to the back, leaving a loop. Bring the needle back up about halfway down the first stitch and pull through.
Insert the needle at the end of the next stitch and pull through, leaving a loop again. Bring it back up about 1/3 into the entire stitch - about halfway between the end of the last stitch and the thread on the right.
You will continue to make stitches this way. You only go halfway on the first stitch and about 1/3 the total stitch on the remaining.
This is how to do it if you don't want to use the stab method.
Work to the end of the row and bring the thread to the back and knot or hide the thread.
Back of the work:
You've done it! You've learned TWELVE embroidery stitches and you've made a sampler!
Use any stitch for the center circle that you like to fill in or outline (or both).
And the tree sampler? Here is mine all finished and how I used today's stitches below. I've added the feather stitch border as promised.
There was no real plan for the satin stitching. I just had some fun imagining shading.
Stem stitch for trunk - 3 strands. DMC 434
Seed stitch for leaves - 4 strands. DMC 3053 and 502
Satin stitch on the trunk - 3 strands. DMC 434 and 801
Feather stitch border - 3 strands. DMC 814
Don't touch that trackpad! There's more to learn! Next week is the last week of Embroidery School. Lessons will include how to display embroidery left in the hoop (hoop art) and how to prepare work for framing, washing and care of embroidered work, and how to pack up and store your tools and projects at home and on the road.
I'll also unveil some new designs that will be in the shop next week. So stay tuned, chickies! And have a great weekend!
We're back and heading into the second half of the sampler. Good work! You're doing a great job!
Our first stitch can be a bit tricky, but once you "get" french knots, you'll not be able to stop making them.
French Knot
I used 4 strands for a healthy sized french knot.
Bring the threaded needle up just off center of the point where you want the stitch.
The second photo shows what you are doing. You are wrapping the needle with thread and then inserting it back down to form a decorative knot.
You will not be wrapping so loosely. This is just to show you the process.
With the needle wrapped 3 times and holding fairly tightly to the thread with your other hand, insert the needle just a couple of threads away from where it is coming up through the fabric.
You see how it's all held very close to the fabric. You can't see a big thread space between where it came up from the back and your wrapped loops.
Pull the needle to the back of the fabric, holding on to the tail of the wrapped thread, but not so tightly that you can't pull the needle through. This might be the trickiest common stitch. Play with it.
When it has been pulled through completely it will form a little knot with a little belly button in the middle.
This is the one stitch you might cut out and do over until you are happy with how your tension feels and your knots look.
Stick with it! You can do it!
Lazy Daisy Stitch
Well, thank goodness! This one is going to be a breeze!
This is just like the lesson four chain stitch, except it's a bunch of separate stitches instead of a connected chain of them.
Bring the threaded needle up from the back at the pointy end near the center of the wheel. Take it back down in the same hole or a thread or two away leaving a loop if thread. Bring the needle back up at the rounded bottom to catch the loop.
And then tack it down with a small stitch over the end of the loop.
These can be made in a row or in a circle or half circle. They can be "strewn about" to look like little flower or vegetable garden seeds on the ground.
Running Stitch
Easiest of stitches yet. Running stitch is often called a "stab stitch" because the needle is stabbed up, and stabbed down, stabbed up, and stabbed down again and again to make the separate stitches.
But it is called running stitch because you can run the needle in and out of the fabric and then pull the whole thing through for a line of several stitches at once.
Running stitch can be used as an outline or decorative stitch.
I used 3 strands for this stitch. Bring the needle up from the back at one end of the stitch. Insert the needle into the other end of the stitch and pull through to the other side. Done!
You can make these in a line or side by side or randomly placed as a fill or for texture.
Here's the "running" method.
Back of the work:
Here is sampler two:
French knot flowers - 3 strands. DMC 223 and 793
Lazy daisy flowers and leaves - 4 strands. DMC 3740, 223, and 502
Running stitch grass - 3 strands. DMC 3053
Back stitch - I decided on back stitch for the curved stems. 3 strands. DMC 3053
Tomorrow, we'll finish off our samplers. Can you believe it!
But that's not all to Embroidery School. Once we finish our samplers, we'll learn how to display the work and care for it.
Already an accomplished stitcher? Then download the samplers and teach a friend or child.
Over the next four days, we'll learn twelve stitches - three per day. I'll be working these up on the wheel sampler but will also show you how I used the same stitches on the tree sampler. (The links will give you both patterns in one download.)
The order in which we are learning stitches has no logic. I simply listed them on the wheel alphabetically so we'll just go around.
You'll see some stitches are remarkably similar: little loops and catches, or just a bunch of straight stitches worked slightly differently. Yup. Most embroidery stitches are lines, loops, or knots or some combination of these.
See? It's easy!
Hoops
If you transfer the pattern (lesson two) as is, without enlarging or reducing, a 7" hoop will fit all around nicely. You can also use a smaller hoop, moving it from area to area as you go or a larger hoop if your fabric piece will accommodate it.
If you printed the sampler on a home computer, it is the size of a sheet of paper and a 7" hoop is the largest size that will accommodate the width.
Colors
Choose your own colors or use the color wheel I chose.
Thanks to Dawn Lewis
who said she saw a color wheel in the design. I had originally thought
of it as a clock and was delighted to see rainbows in my head after she
mentioned it.
( I had a problem identifying two of the colors. I had them labelled as Anchor threads with numbers not matching Anchor's lists. I used online charts as best as I could to choose the likely DMC color. I chose 350 and 311 as the colors that came closest on my computer screen.)
Splitting the floss
Stranded cotton embroidery floss has 6 strands. I have used either 3 or 4 strands for the sampler wheel. Splitting the six strands into groups is a bit of a magic trick. Most stitchers start pulling them apart as you see and just as it looks as if the whole thing is going to become a knotted mess, grabs the other end in their mouths and pulls while continuing to separate the strands.
There's no other way to describe it. You'll see what I mean.
Use any of the methods you like for working with or without knots at the end of the thread. (Lesson three.) I have knotted mine.
Let's start!
Back Stitch
Back stitch is one of easiest stitches of all. It is very often used as an outline stitch, left as is or with the space filled in using another type of stitch.
Bring the threaded needle from the back to the front at the end of the first stitch. You can start from either the outer edge (working in) or the inner edge (working out). I used 3 strands for this stitch.
Insert the needle at the end of the first stitch, actually in between the printed stitch guides. Bring the thread through to the back.
Bring the needle back up to the front at the far end of the next stitch.
And then back down into the same place the last one ended.
From here, continue making these loop-de-loops across to the end of the line.
At the end, simply bring the thread to the back side and knot. This is the back of the work.
Blanket Stitch
Use 4 strands to completely cover the pattern markings. There is just a bit of a tail before the first stitch on this row. Bring the threaded needle from the back to the front at the end of that tail.
Then insert the needle at the end of the little offshoot, pulling through to the back of the fabric, and back up at the top of the "T" of the offshoot. A little bit of thread makes a loop around the needle.
Pull the thread up and a little hook is formed along the line.
Continue pushing the needle down to the back of the work at the far ends of the offshoot lines and back up at the T junction, catching the thread in a loop.
At the end of the line, make a tiny little stitch over the edge to hold the loop shape.
Chain Stitch
I used three strands for this stitch. Bring the threaded needle to the front of the work at the end of the stitch closest to the center of the wheel.
Tricky here. You're going to actually put the needle back into the same hole or a thread or so away from it. Pull it to the back, but not all the way; leave a loop of thread on the top side.
And then bring the needle to the front at the rounded loop end of the stitch, making sure it's inside the loop of thread remaining at the top.
Pull it tight.
Now do the same thing again. Go to the back side at the same point, come back up at the other end of the stitch inside the loop, and pull tight. (Not too tight.)
Continue making these chains along the line.
At the end of the row, catch the loop by making a tiny stitch at the end.
Back of the work
This is what the work looks like on the back side.
Yay! You've learned three stitches and completed a quarter of the sampler wheel.
Here are the same stitches used on the tree sampler.
Back stitch on the fence - 3 strands. DMC 814
Blanket stitch in the tree - 4 strands. DMC 367 and 3053
Chain stitch for the clouds - 3 strands. DMC 793
Bonus round! Running out of thread during blanket stitch:
If you run out of thread, make your loop as shown and bring the end of the thread up elsewhere just to hold it.
Knot and bring the new thread up at the top of the T to catch the loop. Pull the hanging thread to tighten it a bit.
Bring the needle through and make your next stitch.
Pull the hanging tail thread to the back and knot.
I'll see you all tomorrow for lesson five and three more stitches. Happy stitching!
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