Stem stitch (or outline stitch) is an amazingly versatile stitch. You can use it to outline designs as in the peasant girl stitchery picture. In multiple colors like this one, a design will pop.This stitch is also the basis for traditional “red work” embroidery, where an entire picture is stitched in red (or blue) thread.… Continue Reading
Author Archives: Romilly
All Your Eggs in One Basket – Dance Edition
It is so tempting when designing your dance, whether doing choreography or laying the bare bones of an improv, to throw in all those hard-won moves. After all, isn’t that why you practiced? Isn’t that why you sweated and struggled and finally got your shimmy layered over that hip circle while doing an undulation and… Continue Reading
Basic Embroidery Stitches – Back Stitch
Back stitch is another straight stitch variant. Instead of a dotted line, it creates a filled in line. In fact, it can look a lot like double running stitch, but the solid line is created in one pass of the needle! By varying your stitch length, you can work this line around curves, making great… Continue Reading
Can I do a Counted Technique on Regular Fabric?
The easy answer to this is Yes. But you may need to use waste canvas if you want to keep your stitches completely even. If you have a relatively coarsely woven fabric and can see individual threads well enough to count them, you can work counted techniques directly on the fabric. Keep in mind if… Continue Reading
Basic Embroidery Stitches – Running Stitch
The first basic stitch we’ll look at is the running stitch. This is, simply a series of straight stitches strung together to form a dotted or dashed line. Once your line is created, you can stitch back the way you came, filling in the gaps. This is called Double Running Stitch. So for this first… Continue Reading