First, a note

My 50th birthday is next Friday! So I’m going to do something I don’t do. For the entire month of April, use the code 50THBIRTHDAY in the checkout box at my Etsy shop and get 20% off of all purchases. All of them. Even custom doodle designs. This starts tomorrow, and will end at midnight, April 30, 2016. So get your order in soon.

The sheaf stitch is comprised of all straight stitches – even the “tie” on the bundle is just a straight stitch that catches the first stitches and pulls them in toward the center.

It’s got a lot of texture, because you’re putting two layers of thread on your ground fabric, and depending on how tightly you pull the tying stitch, you may gather the base stitches into more than two layers.

Explore stitching this. The image to this blog post includes a couple different sizes of the stitch in different directions, and the center stitch uses two different thread types – one for the sheaf and one for the tie.

Use this stitch on its own to indicate actual sheaves of grain, or lined up for texture. It can make a great border, especially if you play with using different threads within it.